First 4 episodes of Game of Thrones Season 5 leaked online

[dlevere]

By Alejandro Alba

Something always goes wrong when HBO tries to premiere a new season of "Game of Thrones."

The first four episodes of Season 5 were leaked online Saturday, a day before the premiere, according to TorrentFreak. Season 5 of the highly acclaimed show is expected to premiere Sunday on the cable channel as well as online platforms HBO Now and HBO Go.

The leaked episodes, which reportedly came from review copies that were handed to the press, were downloaded more than 100,000 times within the first three hours of appearing online. Download numbers are expected to increase to millions by the end of the weekend.

The episodes first appeared on a private torrent tracker, but made their way to public sites like The Pirate Bay, RARBG and KickassTorrent.

"Game of Thrones" was the most pirated TV show of 2014, and by the looks of it, 2015 will be no different.

Last year, HBO Go crashed during the premiere of "Game of Thrones" season 4 due to high demand. HBO apologized, but many fans were still upset that they couldn't watch the premiere without any interruptions.

[dlevere]

HBO Assesses Breach – Update

By Nellie Andreeva

UPDATE 9 AM:

HBO just issued a statement addressing the leak and the measures the network is taking. “Sadly, it seems the leaked four episodes of the upcoming season of Game of Thrones originated from within a group approved by HBO to receive them,” HBO said. We’re actively assessing how this breach occurred.”

PREVIOUS 7:30 AM:

On the eve of the Season 5 premiere of HBO’s Game of Thrones tonight, the most pirated show in the world is suffering another leak. The first three and possibly four episodes from the fantasy drama’s upcoming fifth season have surfaced on torrent sites in standard definition. According to TorrentFreak, the episodes were downloaded more than 100,000 times within the first 3 hours.

It appears that the sources are screeners sent out by HBO but the network likely is still working on tracing the origin of the illegal upload. Ironically, the latest leak comes just as HBO is making GOT available to non-subscribers via HBO Now and Sling TV and is premiering the show simultaneously in 170 countries so fewer fans are tempted to go the piracy route.

[rimsky82]

If you like HBO programming, support HBO and the right way of doing things and don't download these shows. This is complete bullshit.

If everyone pirated shows and movies, there would no longer be enough money to make them.

[dlevere]

Large scale Game of Thrones leak has HBO targeting Periscope streams

Piracy in various forms didn't hurt too much, as 8 million watched GoT premiere.

By Joe Mullin


HBO

HBO sent take down notices yesterday to Periscope, a live-streaming app owned by Twitter, after its users reportedly shared streams of the blockbuster beginning of Game of Thrones' fifth season on Sunday.

The TV network disclosed its actions in a statement provided toThe Hollywood Reporter, which also included a not-so-subtle dig suggesting that Periscope ought to do some automatic filtering, à la YouTube.

"We are aware of Periscope and have sent take down notices," an HBO spokeswoman told THR. "In general, we feel developers should have tools which proactively prevent mass copyright infringement from occurring on their apps and not be solely reliant upon notifications."

In terms of fighting piracy, focusing on the shaky live-streams being sent to smartphones via Periscope seems a bit like doing patch work on a dam that has already burst. The first four episodes of the show were leaked online on Sunday night. Torrentfreak reported that there were more than 1 million downloads of the first episode within 18 hours.

The four leaked episodes had blurred out watermarks and appeared to come from a "screener" DVD sent out to critics before broadcast.

The massive level of piracy doesn't appear to be hurting the show's success. HBO doesn't release viewer numbers, but Nielsen reported that eight million people watched the premiere on Sunday.

[rimsky82]

Piracy in various forms didn't hurt too much, as 8 million watched GoT premiere.

I was happy to see that. Imagine if the episodes weren't leaked, it might have been 9M.

[dlevere]

Game Of Thrones Pirates, HBO Is Coming For You

By Adam Westlake

Following last week's news that the first four episodes of Game of Thrones season five were leaked onto torrent sites on the night before the season premiere, they were subsequently downloaded millions of times. Understandable, with HBO's drama being the most pirated show around the globe. Also unsurprising is that HBO is displeased with the leak. So displeased, in fact, that the company sent warnings to thousands of torrent users attempting to deter them from downloading the show any further.

Once the leaked episodes started spreading online, it was quickly determined that they originated from a screener DVD sent to reviewers. Most of the torrents are said to have the episodes in 480p, a significant quality downgrade from HBO's regular broadcasts of Game of Thrones in 720p or 1080p. Obviously most of the piracy took place over BitTorrent, but HBO is also said to have been upset by a handful of people who watched the show via streams from Twitter's Periscope.

As for BitTorrent users themselves, over the last week HBO has been sending take down notices to users whose IP addresses were used to share the files. The warnings are sent to internet service providers, who are then instructed to pass the alerts on to customers who match the IP addresses. HBO doesn't know the identities of said pirates, meaning these warnings have no legal standing.

In the end, these warnings may scare off some users from downloading the show again, or they may prove fruitless. HBO has taken similar action before when some of its other shows have been pirated, but since Game of Thrones is the company's biggest hit right now, they probably want to do anything they can to push users to watch it legitimately.

SOURCE Torrent Freak

[dlevere]

HBO fights piracy by killing off review discs

By T.J. Dietsch

Reviewers and pirates take note: HBO will no longer send out preview episodes on disc. Instead, the premium channel will set reviewers up with secure access to a streaming feed of the episode. Presumably, this will stop some of the lazier pirates out there, but definitely not all of them.

Last month, four episodes of the ridiculously popular series Game of Thrones found their way online, and each one was traced back to a review disc. “Amazingly enough, it wasn’t until just recently that a DVD was leaked online,” Quentin Schaffer, HBO executive vice president of Corporate Communications wrote in an email to reviewers. Writers who review TV shows like GoT sometimes get sent episodes ahead of time to help get reviews, posts and stories up as soon as possible. HBO still wants to assist in that way, but through different channels.

Game of Thrones debuted in 2011 and has been the most pirated television series every consecutive year. Some say that’s because of HBO’s status as a pay channel, though the network just recently launched the streaming service HBO Now as a subscription-based platform. While piracy seems to be part of the entertainment landscape moving forward, it seems wise of HBO to take as much action as possible to give viewers the opportunity to legitimately see new episodes as they come out with fewer roadblocks.

Game of Thrones airs at 9:00PM on Sundays.