So we’re not accusing you of anything, but if you’re one of those people who jumped on the mass Game Of Thrones leak last week, you may want to start treading a little more carefully from here on out – HBO has indicated that it is prepared to get tough on people who pirate its flagship show.
According to a post on Torrent Freak, the cable network has begun sending out threatening letters to internet service providers, targeting people who shared the episodes via torrent clients, along the the associated IP addresses.
It’s unclear at this stage whether any Australian ISPs received the letters, but we have contacted various key players for comment.
Per the letters, recipients are advised to:
1. Contact the subscriber who has engaged in the conduct described above and take steps to prevent the subscriber from further downloading or uploading HBO content without authorization.2. Take appropriate action against the account holder under your Abuse Policy/Terms of Service Agreement.
There is no specific threat to users at this point, as ISPs are advised that any measures taken against users would be at their discretion. Indeed, as Torrent Freak point out, sending out notices like the above is pretty common practice in copyright cases.
That said, HBO would like pirates to know that they are, indeed, watching, and are not thrilled.
Last week, the cable network sent letters to Australians who used VPNs to access it’s $US 14.99-per-month HBO Now service, advising that they would soon be cut off from doing so.
In its initial airing, the fifth episode of Thrones‘ fifth season, ‘The Wars To Come’, pulled in 8 million viewers in the US, the highest number for an individual episode so far.
Factoring in steaming, repeat viewings and, well, piracy, the actual number of people who will see the episode is much, much higher.
