While it’s unclear how the group got their hands on the early copy, it seems that HBO may be to blame. “The episode carries the regular HBO watermark and the WEB release tag shows that the video was ripped from an online service, likely HBO Go,” said TorrentFreak. In recent years along with being the most pirated TV show, Game of Thrones episodes have frequently been leaked on torrent and streaming sites before the show has even aired officially. To try and halt that, HBO this year decided to stop releasing promotional Game of Thrones screeners to the press. However, it doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference.
A copy of episode 8 of Game of Thrones’ latest season appeared online on Sunday, several hours before the official premiere was meant to air for the first time in the U.S. and over a day before it became available in other territories like the UK. The episode was already being shared online by tens of thousands of people. A high quality copy with the scene release group tag “EXCLUSiVE” rapidly spread to numerous torrent sites, giving pirates the exclusive indeed. This isn’t the first episode of Game of Thrones to come out early this year. The same happened with season 6 episode 5 of Game of Thrones that was leaked online via HBO Nordic. According to some reports, the season premiere also leaked a few hours early. HBO hasn’t always been so concerned with piracy, with the company’s chief saying at one point that it was a big compliment that so many people watched the show. “I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but it is a compliment of sorts. The demand is there. And it certainly didn’t negatively impact the DVD sales,” he said, during perhaps better times. “[Piracy is] something that comes with having a wildly successful show on a subscription network.” However, though in recent years it has become much more aggressive in its anti-piracy tactics, even going after those that post the nude content from the show on sites like PornHub. Over the past several weeks, thousands of pirates have received notices in their mailboxes, the company is also eagerly taking down links to pirated copies of the show, and “porn” clips and spoilers have been targeted.
