This isn’t the second highest rated series of all time for nothing!
With only hours left before season five for Game of Thrones premieres on HBO tonight at 9:00pm ET/PT, HBO suffers another huge blow with increased piracy for its top series. Last night around 10:00pm ET, unaired episodes from the upcoming season surfaced on various torrent sites, which at the time had been downloaded by more than 550,000 individual clients worldwide – and up to nearly 800,000 as of 9:30am ET.
It’s unclear how the confidential material leaked online, but many speculated an unauthorized press screener was stolen or personally uploaded to masses. Already holing the crown for the most pirated show of 2014 with over 48 million downloads from pirates (not to mention a 24-hour illegal download record for the season four finale), season five is already out to break those numbers after last night (expect VPN usage to increase).
If you want a proper experience of arguably the best show on TV, you can watch live on HBO, on-demand with HBO GO, as well as the newly launched $15 monthly non-pay-TV service HBO Now with Apple TV and Cablevision.
Nathalie Emmanuel for GQ (April 2015)