“It’s online right now, if you want to go and watch it, but they might remove it soon. Someone probably messed up by putting it there,” wrote a Reddit user while commenting on the GoT S06 E05 leak. The leak was first reported by Torrentfreak, and has since been confirmed by HBO. It wrote that “It’s rather ironic that HBO itself appears to be the source for this leak. The company decided to stop releasing promotional screeners this year, fearing that outsiders would leak them. Perhaps the company should take a good look at its internal policies as well.” “This past Sunday’s GoT episode was made available early on the HBO Nordic platform temporarily due to a technical issue, at which time it seems to have been copied,” a spokesperson for HBO told Variety. “Upon learning of the incident, we used the available means to limit further access to the episode.” According to Torrentfreak, at first the GoT S06 E05 available were of low quality. However, soon after a 1080p HD version was widely circulated on the torrent and streaming sites. Game of Thrones has long been one of the most-pirated TV shows on the internet. In 2015, the first four episodes of the season leaked online before Episode 1 had even aired. To fight piracy, HBO tried offering viewers a simultaneous premiere in 170 countries to handle advance press screeners. In recent weeks, HBO has also reportedly been sending pirates warnings about illegally downloading their show, while online links have been taken down within minutes of going up. However, piracy notwithstanding, Variety notes that there “seems to be a lot of interest in streaming the show legally. HBO Now’s app briefly surpassed Netflix’s app to become the top-ranked entertainment app on Apple’s app store when the Game of Thrones season 6 debuted last month.”
