First four Game of Thrones season 5 episodes leak online, HBO plants facepalm

The latest episode of one of the world’s most watched series have just premiered after a year’s long, long wait. While television broadcasters may have gone the extra mile to curb piracy, illegal copies of HBO’s Game of Thrones season 5 have still managed to hit popular torrent sites like a Dothraki khalasar on steroids.

Millions of paid subscribers across the globe sat glued to their screens to watch the first episode of GoT. Others flocked to popular, free torrent sites which are hosting the first four episodes of GoT season 5, weeks before their release. The shows are available on sites like The Pirate Bay, RARBG and KickassTorrents.

This comes after the television networking giant, HBO, have been trying to cull what has become the most pirated series ever, by introducing its own online streaming service and Netflix competitor HBO Now a few weeks ago, in time for the GoT April rush.

Read more: Game of Thrones Season 5 trailer shows Tyrion’s beard, Needle and a wedding

HBO has furthermore been working with over 170 broadcasters across the globe to combat piracy, enabling them to air the show at the same time of the US release. This includes South Africa’s M-Net which has introduced its “revolutionary” Express from the US feature on M-Net Edge.

DStv subscribers can watch GoT as soon as season 5 episodes air in the States, although that does mean waking up at three O’Clock in the morning. M-Net is even screening the tales of Westeros at select Nu-Metro Cinemas across South Africa.

In a statement, HBO said the following: “Sadly, it seems the leaked four episodes of the upcoming season of Game of Thrones originated from within a group approved by HBO to receive them … We’re actively assessing how this breach occurred.”

As pointed out by Torrentfreak, the list of countries where most of the illegal downloads are coming from — Australia, US, UK, Canada — have been legally available for some time now, indicating that the subscription cost is more expensive than the ethical trade-off of downloading copyrighted content.

While millions of fans might be indulging in the latest scoop, the episode are standard definition qualities, which kind of takes away from what’s to-be on offer. Either way, seeing that the bulk of the web has already watched the first four episodes, check out some of these tools that can help avoid spoilers online.