"Game of Thrones" is back, as is the billion people who watch it illegally

It's both easier and harder than ever to watch your favorite TV shows. On the one hand, it seems that everything that has ever been recorded is streaming. On the other hand, these broadcasts are spread across a multitude of platforms, each requiring a subscription to access them.

This is perhaps one of the reasons why "Game of Thrones" is so often viewed illegally, since it is only available on HBO and its streaming service, which both require their own subscriptions. The seventh season of the series was hacked 1.03 billion – yes, billions – of times in September 2017. The final of this season alone was viewed 120 million times illegally during the three days following its release, either by download or by unlicensed feeds. In comparison, the same episode broke a series record for most legal views via live television or HBO streaming platforms, recording 16.5 million views.

"Game of Thrones" was not the most pirated series of last year. probably because it did not release new episodes in 2018. According to TorrentFreak, this distinction belonged to "The Walking Dead", followed by "The Flash". It's likely to change soon, however, as HBO prepares to launch the final. and the most anticipated season of "Game of Thrones" on April 14th.

"The Game of Thrones has become one of the world's biggest entertainment phenomena today, and the activity on hacking networks is totally unprecedented," Andy Chatterley, Executive Director of the anti-piracy company MUSO, which published these figures, said in a statement. "In addition to the scale of hacking in popular shows, these numbers show that unauthorized streaming can be a much bigger type of hacking than torrent downloads."

HBO has always tried to combat hacking, Perhaps more than other networks.For years, the company sent letters to Internet hackers asking them "to inform the subscriber that HBO programming can easily be watched and streamed on many devices in a legal way by adding HBO to the subscriber's television package. "

As the numbers show that these efforts have not been particularly effective. Common sense suggests that the rise of streaming would help to reduce piracy, but in reality that could have the opposite effect.

"Game of Thrones" is probably one of the latest extremely popular shows of what The Golden Age of Television – which began with "The Sopranos" at the turn of the millennium – is now called the Golden Age of Television. This age coincided with the rise of piracy. As the speed of the internet increased and services such as BitTorrent became a little more traditional, nothing prevented fans from downloading programs illegally, especially since this rarely to legal proceedings.

Individual broadcasts may be more prone to piracy if viewers are not not interested in the other rate offered by its channel. After all, a subscription to HBO also includes shows such as "Big Little Lies", "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" and many others. It may not be worth it if a fan is interested only in "Game of Thrones. "The HBO Now app is relatively new and not available everywhere. For example, he did not reach Canada until 2018.

That's why Josh Randell, a resident of Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador, hacked the series in 2017, although he has received two warnings from HBO via his ISP. 19659002] "It's just not viable for me to spend $ 150 for HBO. It's never been so easy, so why can not I do it? "Randell told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in July 2017." Content creators deserve their money. But I want to pay for the content I want, not for the content I want, but for a bunch of extra crap.

However, some researchers argue that a limited amount of hacking could be positive for HBO, at least in some countries. . In Europe, HBO is often supplied by a British telecommunications company called Sky. Antino Kim, an badistant professor of operations and technology decision-making at the Kelley School of Business at the University of Indiana, explained in a study done in 2018 that Sky may wish to raise prices for HBO , but pirated episodes such as "Game of Thrones" prevent them – if not, they risk losing more customers willing to take the risk of hacking.

"Our results do not imply that the legal route should all at once start to actively encourage piracy, "Kim wrote." It simply follows that, situated in a real context, (HBO) and (Sky) should recognize that a certain level of piracy or its threat could actually be beneficial and should therefore exercise some restraint in their fight against piracy efforts. "

<Previous

Next ant>

Related Articles