Bad News for HBO as Nearly Half Of 'Game of Thrones' Season 5 Has Leaked to Online Torrent Sites

Bad news today for HBO, which is attempting to marry the recent debut of their HBO Now streaming service with season 5 of Game of Thrones. As of last night, the first four episodes of the new season, nearly half of the ten total episodes, have been leaked online to various torrent sites.

After appearing online yesterday afternoon, the episodes have already been downloaded almost 800,000 times, and that figure will likely blow past a million downloads by the season 5 premiere tonight.

Game of Thrones has consistently set records for piracy, which has almost been a point of pride for HBO. Last year, when it was announced HBO set a world record for illegal downloads after the season four premiere, Time Warner TWX +0.14% CEO Jeff Bewkes had this to say.

�Our experience is [piracy] leads to more penetration, more paying subs, more health for HBO, less reliance on having to do paid advertising... If you go around the world, I think you're right, Game of Thrones is the most pirated show in the world. Well, you know, that's better than an Emmy.�

It's a refreshing view of piracy as a means of audience engagement, but that was in reference to the ability of pirates to upload episodes of Game of Thrones shortly after they air, and this is a different situation in which four episodes have leaked weeks before the later ones were supposed to air.

How this happened isn't a mystery. The press has had their hands on four episodes worth of press screeners for a while now, so someone that was trusted with those review materials clearly should not have been. We see this happen every single year with screeners for the top Oscar nominated films, but to my knowledge, Game of Thrones hasn't had to deal with this kind of leak before.

It's an uncomfortable position for HBO who is really relying on this new season of Game of Thrones to push their $15 a month, standalone HBO Now service. But now pirates who may have been considering making the switch to a legal means of consumption can now watch the first four episodes of the show right this moment, so it may negate their motivation to try out Now.