HBO gets prickly at Periscope over Game of Thrones live streams

By Victor Beigelman  |  April 14, 2015 | 10:30pm
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Already sensitive over the first four episodes of its marquee show’s fifth season being leaked, HBO has sent take down notices to Periscope after users of the live-streaming app broadcasted the Game Of Thrones premiere Sunday night. Periscope is owned by Twitter and allows people to live stream video directly through their phones—technology both the old Gods and the new at HBO clearly aren’t fond of.

Periscope does apparently have a team dedicated to content review, but relies on user reports of copyright infringement before taking actions like removing illegal content and shutting down accounts. An HBO spokeswoman essentially stated this policy isn’t enough, suggesting that “developers should have tools which proactively prevent mass copyright infringement from occurring on their apps.”

People watching Game Of Thrones illegally has been happening pretty much since the show started though, so regardless of what happens with this particular kerfuffle, the pirates will likely continue to pirate. Periscope is probably just happy it’s in the news for people streaming nude videos of Game Of Thrones characters as opposed to nude videos of themselves.

 
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