This Friday, piracy hit the fantasy TV series Game of Thrones when Episode 4 “The Spoils of War” of the ongoing seventh season was leaked online. The leak originated from Hotstar, an Indian streaming service, and carries the watermark of HBO’s distribution partner Star India.
While HBO has been battling leaks after hackers successfully breached their servers earlier this week, a Verge report says this episode leak was not part of the hack.
Distribution company Star India has taken responsibility, and terms the leak “a grave issue”. A spokesperson told the media, “We take this breach very seriously and have immediately initiated forensic investigations at our and the technology partner’s end to swiftly determine the cause.”
While media sites refrained from revealing spoilers, many who had watched the episode said the quality was “garbage” and they wished they had just waited another two days.
Last Sunday, several journalists had received emails from anonymous hackers who announced that “the greatest leak of cyber space era is happening”.
While most viewers tweeted that they preferred to watch the episode on Sunday without seeing any spoilers on social media, those who watched the pirated episode had a different kind of complaint:
When you give in and watch that #GoT leak, but realize you’ve got over a week now to wait for Episode 5. #GameOfThrones pic.twitter.com/F4ebS5HlSd
— Ashley Anderson (@AMA3532) August 4, 2017
While some jokingly hoped that a major villain in the series, Ser Gregor, would find the leakers, and others speculated that Olenna Tyrell (who featured in a major reveal last episode) was behind it, some users said a different kind of pain was in store for them:
I admit it. I watched the leaked #GameofThrones episode. My punishment is not being able to talk about it with anyone for 3 days. #GoTS7e4
— Colin (@lowericon) August 5, 2017
The leaks came from India, and a little nationalism wasn’t far behind:
When people ask you, how the Episode 4 got leaked?
Tell them India remembers
A D V E R T I S E M E N TTell them winter came for HBO #GoTS7e4 #GameOfThrones
— Saravanan (@msaravanan007) August 5, 2017
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Image Credits: HBO
