> For live events (especially sporting events) of course that's enough to make pirating impractical, but for the new episode of Game of Thrones it's really not much.

I think you underestimate how many people prefer to watch the latest episode as it airs.

> not due to the time required for pirates to break the DRM

Even if the DRM is already broken, you can't just ignore the initial time spent to break it.

> until it reaches the public trackers that I use

Let's say you stopped 100 random people on a busy street and asked them what a "public torrent tracker" is. How many do you think would know what that even means? And of those who do, how many do you think would actually be able to download a movie through a public tracker?

This is why Popcorn Time was such a huge hit: it provided effortless access to movie torrents for the masses. Obviously, this also explains the rapid response by content publishers to crush the project.