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posted by takyon on Monday April 13 2015, @04:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the join-the-swarm dept.

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."

 
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Techwolf on Monday April 13 2015, @04:58PM

    by Techwolf (87) on Monday April 13 2015, @04:58PM (#169829)

    Been hearing and seeing all the hupla around Games of Thrones. On a hunch, I did a torrnet search for full seasons in the new x265/HEVC and found season one blueray ripped one. Downloaded and watch the first two eposides yesterday. I now think why this show is so popular, I like it and is planning on watching the rest of the seasons when I get time. So the pirate version helped gain another fan. :-)

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @05:09PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @05:09PM (#169833)

    x265/HEVC is really nice, isn't it?

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Techwolf on Monday April 13 2015, @05:20PM

      by Techwolf (87) on Monday April 13 2015, @05:20PM (#169840)

      Yep. One of my auto-download shows came in at 150Megs size, so thinking it was corrupted I almost deleted it, but for shit and giggles, desided to play it to see how well MPV can handle corrupted files. It started ok and looked really good for a 720p capture, so I fast forward it a few times and never hit the end....I was like WTH? After a bit of digging and that when I discovered this new x265 stuff. Now it a battle between the "free" VP9 and x265/HEVC. I hope VP9 wins out as anybody can use that without worry about patent trolls. With google backing, we may end up with hardware decoders that can handle both VP9 and x265. One can hope. :-)

      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday April 13 2015, @05:32PM

        by kaszz (4211) on Monday April 13 2015, @05:32PM (#169853) Journal

        Now if there would be hardware decoders that would only do VP9.. ;)
        And of course lot of content in VP9.

        (btw, is VP9 the best free video codec currently?)

  • (Score: 2) by Techwolf on Monday April 13 2015, @05:24PM

    by Techwolf (87) on Monday April 13 2015, @05:24PM (#169845)

    Follow up to reply. I would be buying blueray of some shows except for one problem, to my knowage, there is no Linux blue-ray player out there. While there is hardware 5 1/4 bluray drives, none to my knowage can be used by Linux.

  • (Score: 2) by tathra on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:21AM

    by tathra (3367) on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:21AM (#170211)

    I now think why this show is so popular

    its popular because of all the dicks. [youtube.com]

  • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday April 14 2015, @07:23AM

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Tuesday April 14 2015, @07:23AM (#170256) Homepage

    I now think why this show is so popular

    It's the boobies, isn't it? Always with the boobies.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk