Game of Thrones Pirates Being Monitored By HBO, Warnings On The Way (torrentfreak.com) 282
HBO is leaving no stones unturned in keeping Game of Thrones' piracy under control. The company is monitoring various popular torrent swarms and sending thousands of warnings targeted at internet subscribers whose connections are used to share the season 7 premiere of the popular TV series, reports TorrentFreak: Soon after the first episode of the new season appeared online Sunday evening, the company's anti-piracy partner IP Echelon started sending warnings targeted at torrenting pirates. The warnings in question include the IP-addresses of alleged BitTorrent users and ask the associated ISPs to alert their subscribers, in order to prevent further infringements. "We have information leading us to believe that the IP address xx.xxx.xxx.xx was used to download or share Game of Thrones without authorization," the notification begins. "HBO owns the copyright or exclusive rights to Game of Thrones, and the unauthorized download or distribution constitutes copyright infringement. Downloading unauthorized or unknown content is also a security risk for computers, devices, and networks." Under US copyright law, ISPs are not obligated to forward these emails, which are sent as a DMCA notification. However, many do as a courtesy to the affected rightsholders. The warnings are not targeted at a single swarm but cover a wide variety of torrents. TorrentFreak has already seen takedown notices for the following files, but it's likely that many more are being tracked.
Meanwhile... (Score:2)
HBO GO is only like $15/month, which in most of the first world is less than the value of the time you'd spend trying to find a pirated copy of every new episode before your co-workers spoil it for you.
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not available outside of the US, so there's that.
If I want HBO's content, I need to pay an expensive cable subscription, I ain't doing that.
After I got a warning email from HBO by my ISP, I just decided to Stream instead of Downloading. I'd like to see them monitor that.
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:5, Insightful)
After I got a warning email from HBO by my ISP, I just decided to Stream instead of Downloading. I'd like to see them monitor that.
I'd like to get this straightened out: when you torrent, the file divided up into pieces and sent to your computer in more-or-less random order, where it's reassembled and stored. when you stream, the file is divided up into pieces and sent to your computer sequentially, and the pieces are deleted after you see them. Aside from not having the pieces afterwards, how is this different in terms of their tracking you? In both cases the files are sent to you. Do you mean "use a proxy"? Or is the difference that a streaming viewer isn't sending pieces to other viewers and you believe that watching it illegally is less criminal than watching it and distributing it?
As an Australian, I have no alternative but to torrent GOT. If I was burning the episodes to disc and selling them at the Caribbean Gardens Market on the weekends, that would be piracy. I consider what I'm doing to be "previewing" - if I think the content is worth it, I'll buy it on DVD, if and when they get around to actually SELLING the discs down here, to show my support for good content.
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:5, Informative)
Streams are (usually) hosted by a single pirate site, which (presumably) isn't inclined to share their IP logs with the media companies. Torrents, however, are hosted by users, which can (and do) include monitoring companies hired by the media companies, which allows them to track the IP of pretty much everyone torrenting that file.. The only way the media companies can track streams is to either have direct access to the ISPs or hosting sites logs, both of which are possible, but considerably more work than tracking a torrent.
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I think more legally important is that torrenting relies on user "sharing" i.e. uploading and downloading the content, while streaming is a typically one way process.
Has anyone ever actually been charged for "downloading" content? I know we have hundreds of stories of people being done for uploading or making available.
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You're doing it wrong, or spreading FUD on purpose.
Connect through a decent privacy focused VPN and all your ISP or anyone between you and your VPN provider sees is an encrypted connection. Yer ship be sailin under bleedin fog cover, matey.
Use not-chrome to browse with. Seriously, Chrome is fast, but it's designed by the company that makes is bread by harvesting your data and selling it. Think about it. Arrr! Leaky ships sink, me buckos!
A decent private site wont get raided, as it's a small community of us
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Foxtel not available where you live?
Not that I would recommend Foxtel to anyone, but it is the legitimate GoT channel in Australia.
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I had Foxtel for about six months. I was fast-talked into it by a door-to-door salesman, of all people, who claimed that a certain channel I was interested in (can't remember the name, but it had a vaguely Gothic theme) would be available very soon. It wasn't. It never came about, and I was left with - as TISM sang in their song "Big Fucking Whoopee" -
Pay T.V: Gilligan's Island.
Rugby.
Gilligan's Island again.
BFW.
I would be interested in seeing what the most recent episode of GOT Foxtel has. I doubt somehow it's season 7.
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Re:Meanwhile... (Score:5, Informative)
As an Australian, you can pay $15/mo for Foxtel Now "Pop pack", which includes Game of Thrones and a bunch of other TV shows.
That's cheaper than Americans who pay for HBO GO who have to pay $15USD
https://www.foxtel.com.au/now/... [foxtel.com.au]
and you hit your cap how fast? (Score:2)
and you hit your cap how fast?
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Dunno, across the Tasman I don't have a cap on my fibre connection.
The kids do a lot of netflix streaming and I seed limux image torrents. Usually do 500GB a month.
Unlimited plans in Aussie start from $40/month
https://www.whistleout.com.au/... [whistleout.com.au]
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As an Australian, you can pay $15/mo for Foxtel Now "Pop pack", which includes Game of Thrones
That's a huge improvement over past seasons, which required a very expensive Foxtel package.
However, limited platforms, and the "Foxtel Now" Android app is a steaming pile of excrement. e.g. it works with chromecast, but no FF/RWD ability, just pause. Mostly 1-star ratings in the Play Store. If you have a "Telstra TV" device, it might be better?
A good, funny, explanation of Foxtel Now here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I'll stick with Netflix, iView and SBS, and torrent the dragons.
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As an Australian, you can pay $15/mo for Foxtel Now "Pop pack", which includes Game of Thrones and a bunch of other TV shows.
That's cheaper than Americans who pay for HBO GO who have to pay $15USD
https://www.foxtel.com.au/now/... [foxtel.com.au]
But that involves giving money to the most evil man on the planet. Given the fact that they cant actually do anything but send warnings to Australians, it's a no brainier.
If you want my money, you need to give me the video forever, which I can watch on my schedule, in a format I find acceptable and from a source I dont find evil. Right now, torrents beats the legitimate option on 3 or more of those criteria.
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After I got a warning email from HBO by my ISP, I just decided to Stream instead of Downloading. I'd like to see them monitor that.
I'd like to get this straightened out: when you torrent, the file divided up into pieces and sent to your computer in more-or-less random order, where it's reassembled and stored. when you stream, the file is divided up into pieces and sent to your computer sequentially, and the pieces are deleted after you see them. Aside from not having the pieces afterwards, how is this different in terms of their tracking you? In both cases the files are sent to you. Do you mean "use a proxy"? Or is the difference that a streaming viewer isn't sending pieces to other viewers and you believe that watching it illegally is less criminal than watching it and distributing it?
>
You are a pirate if you have a hand in making the a pirated content available online. When you leech a torrent content, you are also sending the part that are stored in your local storage to other downloader, which more or less is the same as burning the episode to a disc and sell them. Streaming on the other hand only make you a consumer of pirated contents, which is not a target of DMCA take down
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You are a pirate if you have a hand in making the a pirated content available online. When you leech a torrent content, you are also sending the part that are stored in your local storage to other downloader, which more or less is the same as burning the episode to a disc and sell them.
What if I choke my upload rate down to zero, and don't seed? I'd be a leeching asshole by torrent community standards, but I'd be - well, not a good citizen, but slightly less of a bad one, to HBO.
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Game of Thrones, regardless of all the hype and bullshit, just is not that great, simply dragged on and on, too much. The only reason is seem so great is because relative to the other stuff out there at the moment it is far better, some real crap out there. Besides, binge watching is the only way to go. I only watch a season when it is complete and sometimes I will stream the first episode if there is a cliff hanger, rather than wait. My real preference is to wait until a series is fully completed and watch
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:4, Insightful)
What about "not giving a flying fuck" option?
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There are already a huge number of shows I don't give a flying fuck about, most of them about celebrity cooks, real estate and non-entities trapped in film sets that look like a house.
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Or is the difference that a streaming viewer isn't sending pieces to other viewers and you believe that watching it illegally is less criminal than watching it and distributing it?
From what I've understood of US law, yes. The exclusive rights of a copyright holder [cornell.edu] include reproduction (that is, storage to a medium) and distribution (sending it to someone else), but streaming doesn't use any of those rights. Copies that are purely transitory like buffers and caches do not count as storage. Note that it's more about the nature of the use than the actual technology, if you start a hundred copies of a piece of software from one shared network drive they may consider that as a hundred fix
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> As an Australian, I have no alternative but to torrent GOT
You can not watch.
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:4, Informative)
The VPNs are now blocked by the geo-lockers such as Netflix and HBO. So that doesn't help, unless you find a particularly small and obscure VPN provider they haven't identified and blocked yet.
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Just torrent from behind a decent VPN. Many VPNs support torrenting and provide settings guides for major torrent clients. It's usually significantly slower than connecting to the swarm directly, but that's the price of privacy.
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If I want HBO's content, I need to pay an expensive cable subscription, I ain't doing that.
Not if you live in the US. We don't have a cable subscription, and sprung for the free trial of HBO Go last year (I think you get 30 days before you're charged?) so that we could catch up on the whole series without having to mess with torrents. Our original plan was to cancel the trial before we had to pay, but in the end we decided to pay for one month out of principal - $15 to binge watch six seasons was well worth it to us.
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If you were using a VPN, how did you get one of the notices/warnings?
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Is it available without a $150 cable subscription? Not in my area.
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Re: Meanwhile... (Score:2)
What are you talking about? What arbitrary fines?
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:4, Interesting)
Good luck getting Game of Thrones in Australia legally without paying $46/month to Foxtel for the privileged (and another $10/month if you want HD)
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$15/mo. Link. [foxtel.com.au]
At $3.75/episode, I think that pretty convincingly sinks the argument of "I have NO CHOICE but to pirate Game of Thrones because no one will offer it at a reasonable price!"
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We all know copyright is a government granted monopoly, so there is no legal competition for any specific work, there is only competition for categories of works.
So "piracy" has emerged as price driver for content, its $15 because if they put the price up more people will pirating it.
In a productive environment more (legal) participants should lead to a lower price. But if they use the courts and social pressure to stop people pirating they can put the price up and sell it to more people.
Its a corruption of
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Its a corruption of the market.
No, if you don't want to pay: don't watch it. We're not talking about some movie Disney made a million years ago and everyone who worked on it is retired or dead - this is a show which is in current production. They have every right to earn money on something they've just invested money in bringing to the screen.
Perhaps in 20 years [reddit.com] you'd be right to bitch if they're still being copyright nazis about something they've long since abandoned, ya know?
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You entirely missed the point about efficiency of the market.
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"...which in most of the first world is less than the value of the time you'd spend trying to find a pirated copy of every new episode before your co-workers spoil it for you."
How much time do you think it takes to find 4 episodes a month? You seriously think the value of that time is greater than $15 in "most of the first world"? Delusional thinking.
I would expect anyone of average ability to be able to accomplish this in only a few minutes.
Then there's the matter of HBO's delays in making content availa
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If you just want Game of Thrones (and a bunch of other HBO shows too) you don't need Amazon Prime Video for $8.50 + $15
You can pay $15AUD for Foxtel Now. Only available in Australia.
Cheaper than the $14.99USD for HBO Now, only available in USA.
How's that for "The Australian Tax"?
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Re: Meanwhile... (Score:3)
Care to name said laws.
The monitoring services they use suck (Score:2, Insightful)
I got two DMCA warnings a little over a year ago accusing me of pirating Game of Thrones, and I'm paying for HBO mainly just for that one show. I use BitTorrent, but I did not torrent Game of Thrones.
Re:The monitoring services they use suck (Score:5, Interesting)
I think they pick IP addresses at random. I work for a tiny cable ISP, and we've gotten DMCA notices for addresses that have never been used.
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There's also the possibility that the torrent swarm list has false endpoints in it deliberately to poison any data gathered from monitoring the swarm. Personally, I would _expect_ all public trackers to add false peers into the mix as doing so increases plausible deniability for the real peers. Whether they actually do, I don't know, since I don't use them, but I've heard rumours of this activity in the past.
Anyone wanting to monitor would then have to actively connect to advertised peers to ensure they exi
Re:The monitoring services they use suck (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact they do pick at random. The trackers throw in a few random IP addresses and the tracking services don't bother to check if they can actually connect and download the data in question from them.
You have to remember that the trackers are not motivated to do a good job. They don't bother with forensic quality evidence, they just spam as many people as possible and rely on some percentage of them panicking and paying up. If it gets as far as court and the defendant actually shows up, they almost always lose.
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I'm not at all surprised. Years ago (around 2002-3, I guess) I wrote a little honeypot website - it would emit random words and phrases from the titles of songs, actors/actresses, movies etc, appended with various file extensions. The kicker: all the "links" were handled by the same script that only ever emitted text/html with yet more links...
That garnered an officious legalistic DMCA screed back in its day; my colo ISP was suitably amused when he heard the nature of the site.
Goes to show they just ran bru
I refer you to The Oatmeal. (Score:5, Informative)
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones
I have no problems paying for something when it's easy to pay for that thing and reasonably priced. HBO and the cable companies are all off their rockers where I live, so pirating content is often the only solution available if I want to know what the hell my online friends are yammering about the next day.
Re:I refer you to The Oatmeal. (Score:5, Informative)
Since then HBO has a $15 streaming service that doesn't require a cable subscription.
There's a $15 Foxtel service for Australians
There's a $15 NeonTV service for New Zealanders...
There's probably a $15 streaming service for most countries.
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No, there's not...
Not to mention all the people who are on internet connections too slow or unreliable to stream. It's easy enough to download a torrent overnight and watch it the following day, but streaming requires a connection fast enough to download the show in realtime.
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It's $10/month in the UK for streaming (Now TV), but the quality is shit so I subscribe and then torrent a high quality copy to watch. VPN prevents tracking.
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I cannot even get HBO (the complete package) here unless I physically move to a location where the only ISP who offers HBO provides their service. Last year HBO pulled the plug to provide service to the rest of the country.
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"so pirating content is often the only solution available "
Are you arguing that you are not willing to pay for the content so your only choice is left is to steal it?
I'm very happy to pay for digital content. It's just that the only company that is willing to give me the service I want, at the price I want, is my VPN provider.
Re:I refer you to The Oatmeal. (Score:4, Insightful)
What's the difference between someone who downloads a BitTorrent and someone who would never pay for the show if BitTorrent (or other options) weren't available? None.
It's not stealing, dumbfuck. Are you committing rape whenever you drive over the posted speed limit? There are different terms for different violations of the law for a reason.
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The point is exactly, and if you read the comic you would know that, that we ARE willing to pay for content. Sell it to us! Pretty please, with a cherry on top, SELL IT!
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Pirating is often the ONLY solution available irrespective of cost...
Not all shows are available through legitimate channels in all countries... Game of thrones is simply not available AT ALL in some countries. And yet we live in a world with global connectivity where people from all around the world can communicate. Why should HBO get away with discrimination against some countries?
Even in countries where a show is available, doesn't mean its available to all residents of that country...
Cable TV does not h
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Look at what you have become. A lawyer.
You've an interesting way of spelling "shill".
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Doesn't give you downloadable files that you can keep, is still geoblocked, and requires a decent internet connection to use.
See above, corporatist apologist.
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To access HBO GO, you must reside within the fifty states of the United States of America.
If you reside in this area and are still experiencing difficulties, please contact your television provider.
I'd be willing to pay them $15, but they discriminate against me.
The pirate bay doesn't discriminate, they don't care where i'm from and will happily serve me the same content. I'd rather pay $15 a month for a private bittorrent tracker.
Yard Arms (Score:2)
Re:Yard Arms (Score:5, Funny)
British criminals were often Transported for crimes as small as stealing a loaf of bread, but I already live in Australia. Where are they going to send me?
"Mega-Australia? Ultra-Australia?... Maximum Over-Australia?" - Tien
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I would be willing to admit Mars would be a good future-Australia.
Sure, the flora and fauna isn't out to kill you, but only because there isn't any. Instead, the planet itself it doing its best to end you. Low grav health issues, radiation, toxic surface chemistry, ridiculously thin and O2-free atmosphere... it makes Australia look like the Garden of Eden in comparison.
Also, it's a big, arid rock far from civilization.
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USA.
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Transportation to Australia only started after the American Revolution made transportation to the 13 colonies impossible.
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uh huh, less than half the per capita income of the USA in England but at least australia has 79%. but go ahead and make jokes about the USA you inbred limey, we're laughing all the way to the bank.
Re: Yard Arms (Score:5, Insightful)
Talking about the average income in the US is like putting a leg into the freezer and one into the oven and claim that on average the temperature is fine.
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According to the UN, the average person has a better life in the UK than the US [wikipedia.org].
(Australia of course is well ahead of both countries)
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Thunderdome?
Although the legal proceedings are 2 men enter, 1 man leaves. Unfortunately for you the HBO "prosecutor" is The Mountain...
Real World Consequences? (Score:2)
In a random twist, I am actually watching this season of GoT via DVR with the wife in the living room, on a real television.
I posted a survey on my favorite torrent site to see if anyone there has received ISP notices. So far, no response.
How about you folks out there in /. land? Anybody received any notices for torrenting GoT?
Game Of Thrones DMCA Notices a Form Of Advertising (Score:5, Interesting)
HBO has always been worth it to me (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is why... (Score:2)
VPN (Score:2)
"We have information leading us to believe that the IP address xx.xxx.xxx.xx was used
Really? That happens to be the IP address of my VPN provider.
Seriously, if you torrent anything, get a decent VPN provider. Makes things so much simpler. Be sure to pick one that offers a SOCKS proxy. If the VPN fails, then your bittorrent client is still covering your ass using the proxy.
Oh, and don't use Deluge. It ignored proxy settings for many, many years, exposing its users to law enforcement:
http://dev.deluge-torrent.org/... [deluge-torrent.org]
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Or setup your firewall.
I don't have any issues with Deluge, though I use OpenVPN as a service for the VPN connection and SOCKS is just backup.
At last test, SOCKS worked fine through the proxy.
I periodically test my proxy and it haven't failed me yet.
VPN (Score:2)
*laughs in VPN*
Ok. (Score:2)
More spam for the spamkiller to learn about.
What's for dinner?
Netherlands and GoT (Score:2)
Here, in the Netherlands, HBO has withdrawn its service, but you can stream Game of Thrones, a day later, IF you get triple play with the Ziggo ISP for at least 1 year AND a mobile phone subscription with Vodaphone. But wait, you're not done... you have to pay another â11.95 just for the privilege of their buying their "Movies and Series XL" package. So, you're in for at least â60 a month, just to watch GoT.
So, there you go, waiting for the stream to start, and what happens? Nothing. Misconfigured
"I'm justifying pirating because " (Score:2)
Yeah, but....... (Score:2)
I get the shows mixed up sometimes, but Daenerys Targaryen was a Jedi, right?
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Why should my Iranian VPN service give a fuck about a silly law from a silly country?
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VPN provider gets bad name for cutting off clients, VPN provider loses business and makes less money.
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I fully agree. I have licensed copies of all episodes that are available for purchase. A few years ago you could buy episodes from Australian iTunes but that's no longer possible. My only options are to pay a monthly fee for a streaming service for a couple of months (and then the episodes will vanish once that period is up - and of course I don't get any sort of discount on the Blu-rays) or I can torrent them now and then buy them when the Blu-rays became available.
If I was able to buy each episode as it w
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Same here. Never seen it, no desire to.
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Nope. And I'm even the perfect target audience, the whole deal should actually interest me greatly.
Still I never felt the urge to see "Romeo & Juliet meet Machiavelli's Prince" set against the backdrop of a medieval fantasy world. The story is essentially timeless and has been told too many times for me to want to hear it once more.
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Too bad they are going to push out a bunch of spin-offs, though hopefully they will do ok as well.
Re:This is what happens... (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of us have no way to legally see it, so torrents are the only option.
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Some of us have no way to legally see it, so torrents are the only option.
I've got ways to see it but paying for HBO is just annoying so I don't bother (to pay, or see it). I gave up after the fourth season or somewhere near there.
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The TV series has gone beyond the books. Didn't you get the memo?
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Apologies - I thought HBO Now was available globally. I guess you'd need a VPN. From the Wikipedia entry:
HBO Now is only available to customers in the United States, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, certain U.S. territories, and a few more countries.
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...when you have a good show, people want to see it.
Well, GoT gets slightly "walking deaded": the previous season (6) showed what happens when the show and the books take (slightly) different paths, sensationalism takes over the depth and subtlety found in the books, at times (season 6 [wikia.com]). Not awful - yet. But let's hope season 7 will not ressemble a Marvel recipe.
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We get it, you're special.
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FWIW, I've never watched GoT and never will, having suffered through the first 3 or 4 books until I came to the realisation that George RR Martin is a nothing more than a very long-winded troll taking cruel advantage of all of those who've never read I, Claudius.
If I ever meet him in person, I may well have to be restrained from punching him in the face.
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"We get it, you're "special"."
FTFY
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I watched half of the first season. It sucks.
Same, for me its main problem was it started at the same time as spartacus and that was shit hot! While spartacus was basically equal parts hardcore violence, softcore porn and devious politics, game of thrones was all people being mopey, foreshadowing and a whole lot of fuck all going on.
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I'm curious to hear what you'd consider a wise use of time.
And then you can also inform me why it would be wise for me to use it that way. Because it's likely that I disagree.