HBO out to stop illegal Game of Thrones Downloads

19

game of thrones 1

Game of Thrones Season 6 is out and its all shades of interesting.  The show which airs on Home Box Office is one of the most popular in the world with millions of people tuning into to watch the battle to take over Kings Landing. Game of Thrones has also taken over the iron thrones as the most pirated show ever.  Last year during its season 5, an episode was illegally downloaded 2.2 million times worldwide in less than 12 hours.  The season finale was illegally downloaded 1.5 Million times in 8 hours with numbers swelling over 10 million times as of the last count.

HBO has been facing difficulties in availing the  Game of Thrones  both online and through cable/satellite in some countries, meaning the only choice for fans of the show is to torrent. In Kenya, you can watch the show 24 hours after it airs on DSTV Explora meaning fans get to watch it around 2:30 am on Tuesday. HBO and its parent Time Warner  were initially receptive, saying it is a good thing to be the most pirated TV show in the world saying its better than winning an Emmy as it creates awareness.

HBO is now taking steps aimed at tackling pirating of the show by sending out warnings to pirates of their copyright infringement. HBO has also requested torrent sites to remove Game of Thrones torrents besides asking Pirates to get a HBO subscription.  The company has hired an anti-piracy firm Echelon to lead the anti-piracy efforts. Torrent freak shared the email warning from HBO as seen below

HBO warning

This is aggressive from HBO and it will be interesting to see if it eventually pays off.

Previous articleSunday Sermon: A few Things for Aspiring Entrepreneurs and Founders
Next articleCurtains Fall on M-Pesa in South Africa with Vodacom shutting service in June
Eric writes on business, govt policy and enterprise tech.

19 COMMENTS

  1. Yes. I agree. People should stop this. Get a HBO subscription or buy my IPTV service and get all HBO channels for just $13.0.

  2. Where else shall we watch it??

    I think TV producers should stop this archaic system of rights sale and wake up to the new reality! The days of holding rights for a full year then resale to international TV companies is long gone, most TV stations know well that these popular programmes have already been watched by the masses thus no need of buying them a year later.

    Let HBO open the floodgates like Netflicks and let everyone BUY these programmes and i’m sure they shall earn more in the long term than leave it as it is where pirating is the order of the day.

    People love these shows, HBO should reward them by selling it to them not punish them

Comments are closed.