HBO continues to manage the fallout from this month's incredibly high-profile leak of the first four episodes of Game of Thrones season 5, sending out a flurry of take-down notices and sending letters to those who downloaded the files via BitTorrent.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Through its anti-piracy partner IP-Echelon, HBO has been contacting internet service providers (ISPs) to request they send out infringement notices to subscribers associated with the IP addresses of devices found to be downloading the leaked episodes, filesharing news blog Torrent Freak reports.
Letters received by users around the world have been showing up online — like this one on Reddit from a user in Canada — and Torrent Freak claims to have seen several take-down notices after links to the episodes were posted publicly online.
The original leak appeared to come from a preview DVD sent to a group that had been approved by HBO to see the show early, and also resulted in the company having to take action against streaming app Periscope, where users were broadcasting the leaked footage. The four episodes were apparently downloaded from BitTorrent clients millions of times.
If you've received a letter in the mail, you'll be relieved to know it carries no immediate legal ramifications. It's impossible to determine the individual who breached copyright from an IP address, and even under the Australian telco industry's proposed anti-piracy scheme, you'd have three warnings before your ISP gave your name and address to rights holders for potential legal action.
It's likely HBO simply hopes notifying users will make them think twice about their options before pirating next time (those options currently being Foxtel or wait, as HBO has announced they'll be blocking Australians from sneaking into their HBO Now service). The reminder that rights holders can track users down is particularly timely for viewers in Australia, where Dallas Buyers Club LLC recently won the right to request ISPs hand over subscriber details, and the looming Trans-Pacific Partnership has scary implications for pirates as well.
Of course any BitTorrent users hiding their locations behind virtual private networks (VPNs) — which are used increasingly in Australia — would have been invisible to HBO's investigations.
Fairfax Media
