The first four episodes of
Game of Thrones—the episodes sent out as screeners to reviewers everywhere, including yours truly—have been leaked online.
This is bad news for HBO, which just rolled out its cable-free stand-alone streaming service (and Netflix competitor) HBO Now on Tuesday. For $15/month you can now cut your cable and watch HBO shows, like
Game of Thrones, online when they air.
That’s great news for many viewers, and something I was arguing for years ago (despite being told by many, many people that this would be the death of good TV.)
Still, four leaked episodes constitutes nearly one half of Season 5, a season which
I’ve argued is the most important yet in the series, and that’s a pretty big deal for any show. Will it turn off potential Now subscribers?
That seems like a real possibility, at least for the month it rolls out.
Gizmodo’s Maddie Stone
argues that “
If it were me, I’d pull a Netflix and release the entire season at once, so that my fans didn’t have to choose between avoiding weeks of internet spoilers and downloading the episodes illegally.”
That’s an interesting idea, of course, but HBO isn’t Netflix and many viewers still watch their HBO on regular old-fashioned TVs. Many more will never think to download episodes illegally. It’s a pretty big risk to just release everything at once. HBO is still beholden to traditional ratings expectations as well, unlike Netflix, and there’s no telling what binge-releasing would do to the ratings, but I doubt it would be good, at least in the short term.
There’s still something to be said for mounting hype and excitement as the story unfolds over the weeks. Even having screeners for review purposes is a bit of a double-edged sword.
Forbes contributor Joseph Steinberg
wonders whether the leaked episodes were hacked or leaked via screener copies.
I think it’s almost certain that screeners were leaked. A hack would have almost certainly resulted in more episodes leaked. Besides it’s too much of a coincidence.
Steinberg also writes, “
Data should be stored and transmitted in encrypted formats, made available to only those people who need access to it in order to do their jobs, and treated as the valuable resource that it truly is. Also, to both discourage leaks and facilitate investigations if a leak were to occur, digital watermarking should be utilized when sensitive videos need to be distributed to outside parties; it is unclear if HBO did so with its digital screeners of Game of Thrones, but, if it did, the technology might help track down the source of the leak.”
Just to clarify, HBO does include watermarks on its screeners and I’ve little doubt they only send screeners to people who need them to do their job. Perhaps whoever leaked these was able to circumvent this. It’s a shame that someone placed in a position of trust would break that trust, but I suppose when you screen the game of thrones you win or you die or something.
Either way, I think that if you can legally access HBO’s programming, the responsible and ethical thing to do is to watch the show by paying for it or at least watching at a friend’s house. I realize that for many people with no access to HBO (because of their geographical location, usually) this is much more of a conundrum. If you already pay for HBO, downloading the leaked episodes is a bit of a grey area.
But really, do you really want to spoil the show weeks in advance? Isn’t it a bit like opening Christmas presents the week before Christmas?