INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

‘Game Of Thrones’ Continues To Cause Piracy Craze, HBO Issues Stern Warning To Pirates

By Jean Mendoza
Published on: 22:46 PST, May 8, 2016

Last year, HBO’s Game of Thrones took home the crown for the most pirated TV series for the fourth year in a row. Following in second place was The Walking Dead, and The Big Bang Theory came in at third place. With the premiere of Game of Thrones Season 6 a few weeks ago, the piracy continues, and HBO is working to stop, or at least limit the piracy of their TV series.

According to a report from CNN Money in April, via Torrent Freak, more than 200,000 people shared pirated copies of the premiere episode of Game of Thrones Season 6 entitled “The Red Woman.” As of that report, the first episode of Season 6 had been illegally downloaded at least 1 million times, which is 500,000 less than the downloaded copies of Season 5’s premiere episode. Season 5 Episode 1 eventually reached 10 million illegal downloads. If the previous season’s trend continues, Game of Thrones Season 6’s first episode could be downloaded 10 million times, if not more.

A new report, as stated by CNET, reveals that Australia is leading the pack when it comes to downloading pirated copies of Game of Thrones, making up 12.5 percent of the total downloads. The second is India (9.7 percent), followed by the U.S. (8.5 percent). Perhaps its the lack of distribution channels in Australia that makes them pirate the TV series. One Australian shares his experience in an article in Kotaku entitled, “I Refuse To Feel Guilty For Torrenting Game of Thrones.”

TorrentFreak is a website dedicated to sharing the latest news on BitTorrent and file sharing, and is also known for piracy tracking. The founder of the website, Ernesto Van der Sar, told CNBC that he expects piracy to continue to rise with each episode leading to the season finale.

“Traditionally, the season finale generates most interest, with over 5 million downloads in a week. Since the first season, ‘Game of Thrones’ piracy has gradually increased, and it’s not unlikely to see this trend continuing.”

With the staggering number of illegal Game of Thrones downloads, HBO has issued a statement, calling torrent sites to pull down all Game of Thrones torrents. HBO has an anti-piracy partner, IP Echelon, a company specializing in providing data on unauthorized distribution channels, and as early as the start of Season 6, the company has already sent thousands of warning emails to Internet Service Providers (ISP), asking them help in fighting piracy. Below is an excerpt from the warning email, as reported by Torrent Freak.

“As the owner of the IP address, HBO requests that [ISP] immediately contact the subscriber who was assigned the IP address at the date and time below with the details of this notice, and take the proper steps to prevent further downloading or sharing of unauthorized content and additional infringement notices.”

In addition, the warning email also tells the ISP to inform their subscribers of legal ways to watch Game of Thrones, specifically by including HBO to their cable TV package. Although ISPs are not required to send these emails to their subscribers, some do.

Aside from sending out these warning emails, HBO has also started contacting torrent websites directly, asking them to take down Game of Thrones torrents. While small torrent sites may get away with leaving Game of Thrones torrents on their site, bigger torrent sites, such as Torrentz and KickassTorrents, have already started removing Game of Thrones torrents from their listing.

Despite HBO’s push to limit piracy, there are still hundreds, if not thousands, of Game of Thrones torrents available on the internet.

[Image by Micha/Shutterstock]

Share this article: ‘Game Of Thrones’ Continues To Cause Piracy Craze, HBO Issues Stern Warning To Pirates
hbo game of thrones
More from Inquisitr