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Paul Tassi reports at Forbes that the first four episodes of the new season of Game of Thrones, nearly half of the ten total episodes, have been leaked online to various torrent sites. The four episodes appeared to come from a screener sent to reviewers with the digital watermark blurred out and are in 480p resolution, equivalent to standard-definition TV, not HD. The episodes have already been downloaded a million times, and that figure is expected to climb by the season 5 premiere. Game of Thrones has consistently set records for piracy, which has almost been a point of pride for HBO. "Our experience is [piracy] leads to more penetration, more paying subs, more health for HBO, less reliance on having to do paid advertising... If you go around the world, I think you're right, Game of Thrones is the most pirated show in the world. Well, you know, that's better than an Emmy."
How the leak happened isn't a mystery. Television critics typically receive the first four episodes of an HBO show before its season premiere, and Game of Thrones is no exception. HBO could not immediately say whether the leak could be traced to screener copies of the show. "I suspect HBO may be a bit more restrictive about handing out Game of Thrones screeners to press, given the event-like nature of the show and its reliance on keeping spoilers close to the chest," writes Tassi. "I really don't see why commentary like that needs to exist in the first place." The network can take solace in at least one thing, though. Episode four ends on a heck of a cliffhanger, and those who pirated the episodes will be in the same boat as those of us who received them legally — waiting until May to find out what happens next. "I would imagine it's more fun to just spend the next month watching week to week as nature intended, even if you are watching illegally," concludes Tassi. "Game of Thrones is one of the last true "event" shows where it's something you want to talk about Sunday night or Monday morning with friends and strangers alike."
(Score: 5, Interesting) by TK-421 on Monday April 13 2015, @04:52PM
My understanding is that "lock" only lasts a few months. I suspect Apple paid for that privilege and if I were HBO (strictly shooting from the hip here) I also would have taken it. It's three months, the un-cabled world has lived for decades without access to HBO's library what is another three months in the grand scheme of things? HBO gets paid, buzz gets generated, Apple fanboy stereotypes get solidified, and if the whole thing is a horrible flop HBO can just let it quietly die with Apple.
I am more intrigued by the piracy. A major subscription service is openly claiming that piracy helps them in more ways than it hurts them. DRM advocates everywhere have probably scheduled an emergency meeting to discuss how to contain the situation.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday April 13 2015, @05:07PM
I also thought the piracy aspect was interesting.
"Game of Thrones is one of the last true "event" shows where it's something you want to talk about Sunday night or Monday morning with friends and strangers alike."
Its called "sports" gentlemen. There's a lot more than just one. Not being into sports, I none the less have to sit thru monday morning quarterbacking all the time at work meetings etc. Nothing is more important early monday morning than (insert ball team here) and nothing is less important than whatever they did last week. Next weeks game is valueless, two weeks ago is valueless, all that matters is the most recent ball game.
One interesting aspect is nobody traffics in bootleg copies of Packers-Bears games from the 80s. Its topical but has no legs for long term sales. So they're signalling that they don't expect to get much dough by selling DVD box sets or whatever. They seem to be merchandising the property to death by licensing so maybe not so unlikely.
Another interesting aspect is gift sales... you can't sell ME a box set of star trek series, but you CAN sell my wife/kids/parents a star trek DVD box series to give me as a gift on christmas/fathers day/birthday/wtf day. Maybe they're giving up on individual DVD sales and relying on gift sales of DVDs where piracy doesn't matter. A billion "pirate" copies don't matter in the marketplace if my daughter insists on gifting a DVD of "TOS:Space Hippies" for me on father's day.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday April 13 2015, @05:22PM
Football is the only thing keeping me from cutting the cord, although the recent antics of the Chargers is pissing me off.
One game I'd like to re-watch is the blizzard bowl: Chargers/Bengals, in a blizzard, in the 80s.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 1) by SacredSalt on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:56AM
For me its hockey that keeps me from cutting the cord, but cable/dish/whatever goes bye bye every other summer as I have no use for it then.
When I worked sales I almost had to the watch the basketball, football, and baseball games. At a minimum I had to watch the highlight reels on sports center. I'm not a football fan, but the highlight reels aren't bad. The problem with some of that stuff and sales is if a team in the city/cities you work has won a championship you better have actually seen the game because people will talk about for years to come, and its bad form in sales not to be a part of that conversation.
I don't think the 'piracy' really hurts HBO here. It would be one thing if the entire season was released in advance, but 4 episodes? No one is going to be cancelling HBO for three weeks. The people who were going to download it anyway just end up with a poorer copy if they are impatient. There was a good point in there about gift sales being virtually unaffected. I downloaded every single episode of 'The Wire', but my sister in law still me the box set because she knew I was into it. I don't think I would have purchased it on my own.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Monday April 13 2015, @09:36PM
I don't care how long it is. It's giving the finger to a large portion of it's customers, frequently those are are *opposed* to being locked into something (standard connections, etc). The Game of Thrones episodes are something that people want to see *now* and HBO just gave those that aren't iFans the middle finger. I have HBO now, but when it comes to cord cutting time they'll get the same from me. It's greedy, consumer hostile behaviour.
(Score: 3, Funny) by TK-421 on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:46AM
I was about to write a pithy comment about how I was one of the two people who bought a Windows Phone and how I was used to getting the middle finger from the app community. Then I realized that you just might be the other purchaser. Having experienced this epiphany I can only say..."Welcome friend!"