'Game of Thrones' Piracy Surges Ahead of Season Premiere

HBO will have a catch up as part of the freeview going on this week end.

If you don't have comcast you should be able to DVR it in HD and keep it after the free view.

I'm thinking there will always be cheapskates that will pirate just because they can and think they have to watch it NOW. I myself will wait until all the episodes have aired and then sub for a month and watch them all and then unsub...

Don't hate the player hate the game. What you're doing is playing games as well.

With HBO launching a new service outside of cable TV, one wonders what kind of a dent it will put in illegal downloads. Don't rush to dismiss too fast.. The reason is MOST people don't want to illegally do anything, and will pay a reasonable fee instead of just jumping on bit torrent.

Personally, I think 15 bucks a month is steep considering both Hulu and Netflix together cost just a little more than HBO alone. Yes, it does have Game of Thrones lol.. and maybe it isn't apples to apples because HBO-Go does require a TV subscription.

The second thing is for 15 bucks a month, HBO better have a really good line up over HBO-GO which has a lot of static content and most of which isn't very good.

time will tell.

I can see that logic during the season, but season 4 is available now for less than what three months of HBO Now will cost. If these people wanted to obtain a legal copy it's available for purchase. Of course I guess people will be able to share an HBO Now password and avoid the torrent so that may make an impact.

The way I see things coming together I'll likely have a few year round subscriptions (Hulu, Netflix, Amazon) and a few seasonal subscriptions (Sling, HBO). I'm ok with HBO being pricier as I'll likely just subscribe a month or two and catchup during a slow, cold winter spell.

I like paying for what I watch, as I obviously like the shows and want them to continue. I actually cut the cord a few years ago not to save money, but to quit supporting the crappy cable/satellite systems out there (rental fees, bundling, old tech, lack of on demand).

To dent it more, legal offerings should start being DRM-free.

If 50 cents a day is beyond someone's means maybe TV isn't their most pressing issue. Maybe a JOB is. Just because Netflix lowballs it's pricing doesn't mean others should. Hulu Plus? Doesn't that have ads? And ad free Hulu Plus would be more than $8 and that's only ONE stream. HBO gives you 3. So three Hulu Plus streams is $24.

It's nothing about lowballing... It's about the fleecing of America and over-charging.

Sure one can look at it as 50 cents a day, but it's also almost 200 bucks a year, and for just 1 channel.

We don't need to pay more, THEY need to control costs.

HBO like many other specialty channels, tends to offer one (and once and a while two) shows at any given time I would like to watch. $15/month seems like a lot to pay for 1 show. Given that in a month you would probably watch 4 episodes (possibly 3 if they are clever and start it mid month so it goes partially into another month at the end). That's about $4ish (if not more) an episode. If you buy a show from itunes (or other provider) its usually $2 or $3 an ep.

I find that with most channels I don't watch the filler content. AMC is similar to HBO. I like Hell on Wheels, Walking Dead, Better Call Saul, Mad Men, Halt and Catch Fire etc... , but they rarely run them simultaneously. The difference being that AMC has a much lower price point, and they're shows are available to be purchased rather that pay for a month subscription. Out of the shows mentioned above I never watch any of the filler content on AMC.

I think HBO is too expensive. For GoT I would need buy a subscription for April, May, June. That's $45 plus tax. It makes it tempting to immediately pirate and then buy the bluray set when it comes out (relieving ones concious from pirating it in the first place ).

If it makes you feel any better I imagine Netflix will slowly but surely rise to meet their price point arguing there's a largely overall volume of content available.

I suppose it would be the same with both. If your into archived content then it's a way better bang for buck than normal tv channels. If your into new TV shows not so much. Except netflix dumps whole seasons in a day, so you subscribe only when they dump a new show you want to watch.. Rather than HBO's model of stringing it along for 3 or 4 months

To have these new options available, will probably reduce the impact a little.

The other factor is that some folks download no matter what, even if they have a subscription.

I hope they (HBO) has their ducks (servers) in a row for the weekend, either way, and that the "experiment" of offering it without a cable subscription works out.

The fact that they've opened it up outside of needing cable/sat. is a pretty cool thing, I think. Adding to SlingTV is also a neat idea.

At $15/mo, that's $3.75 per episode of GoT, if that's the ONLY thing you watch.
If you catch a movie or two, it would seem to be a LOT more reasonable.
Their whole system is also not really comparable to Netflix. They ALWAYS get at least a couple "recent" movies that have just come off of pay-per-view/disc sale windows, generally within a couple months or so. If you look at it that way, and simply wait to catch a movie or two that they "eventually" show on HBO, that's not too bad a deal, really. Granted, the formatting is often changed (to full 16:9, for example, instead of the "original" aspect ratio), but otherwise "OK" for TV viewing I guess. In that respect, at least Netflix endeavors to leave such things mostly alone, and present the material as it was released (though obviously re-encoded for their streams).

Netflix? Kind of similar, but generally less "popular" newer movies, though their selection of "other" content is certainly more broad (misc. TV series releases, for example).

What really sucks about hbo and their time frame on DVD releases is it takes SOOOO damn long for them to release a dvd of their latest season of a show. I understand they dont' want to release it while they are airing it, but come on, a couple months after the season ends is long enough.. They missed out on a lotta sales potential dragging the release of this last season till after christmas time.. I mean seriously, February??? wtf hbo.. No wonder people pirate your shows..

Major drawback of the new hbo streaming is for those of us stranded with few options for internet access... If everyone had unlimited landline access then they would make a shit ton of money..

I just use paid television from Comcast. If I miss a show I can just log on to my Xfinity account and watch what I missed. If your cable provider has you on a monthly bandwidth cap then by using paid television over online stream video services your not eating up your monthly bandwidth cap at all.

Personally,
It isn't even worth wasting my time to download some show/movie anyway. Biggest waste of life and time is setting in front of the tv like a zombie.

Definitely don't think it's worth the risk of getting caught either for some stupid tv show!

First I do not think too many adults with jobs are illegally downloading; second I think many who do torrent are collectors who never watch. I mean you hear about these people downloading Terra-bytes of data, when do they have the time to view and play all that content. I would say piracy is a larger issue in countries such as China where people have less money and purchasing bootleg copies is a bigger business.

let people make there money first the let it out not fair to the people who make the show its really not a good thing

Wait until your local library has it then check it out as many times as you like. Problem solved.

Download all you want. Full speed ahead!