👉 🔥 CLICK HERE! 🔥 👈

A public screening of Game of Thrones Season 3 premiere episode in San Francisco. James MartinCNET The first four episodes of Game of Thrones were leaked online Saturday as the fifth season of HBOs popular series is set to premiere Sunday night in 170 countries. According to Tech Crunch, 50,000 people downloaded the premiere episode a few hours after it was posted on torrents. The show has long been known as being one of the most pirated shows, and often breaks torrenting records with its premiere and finale episodes. With its newly launched HBO Now streaming service, however, the network giant hoped to lure more users to its premium direct-to-consumer streaming platform with the fifth premiere of a Game of Thrones season. Considering the fact that each season contains 10 episodes, four episodes is a large chunk to have released in the wild. However, HBO execs have said the shows popularity among online pirates is a compliment of sorts and does not hurt the DVD sales.HBO confirmed the leaked episodes were genuine and said it is investigating to determine the source of the leak.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, an HBO spokesman said in a statement. Were actively assessing how this breach occurred.Updated at 10 a.m. PT with HBO statement. +13 more See all photos Late last night fans of the hit TV show Game of Thrones were treated to a leak of the first four episodes of the fifth season. This might be disheartening for a lot of people who will want to watch the episodes as they air because of spoilers. There is even speculation that even more episodes could drop online in the near future.Leaks are comingAccording to reddit and other forums across the internet, the episodes of Game of Thrones are from a screener copy for critics. The quality isnt what is on TV and there is a blurred watermark in the bottom left corner.HBO has made no comment about the leak at the time of this article being written. If more episodes are set to drop by this anonymous leak, it might be even more difficult for a lot of fans who want to watch the show as it airs to prevent spoilers. Maybe HBO will even release the four episodes early?Season 5 premiers tonight on HBO!SOURCE: RedditTags: GameofThronesSeason 5SeasonLeak Game of Thrones fans were sent into paroxysms at the weekend when episodes 1 to 4 of season 5 leaked shortly before the firsts broadcast.They almost certainly stem from preview copies sent to press, but could easily have been avoided.When journalists get sent preview streams (DVDs are rarely sent out anymore) they tend to be watermarked with a serial code or the reviewers name, so that if it pops up online the network will know who is to blame.The problem is, someone - whether the journalist or someone who obtained it from them - simply blurred out the code (which is why those of you who have watched the leaks might have noticed a blur in the bottom left hand corner of the picture).This sucks for those of us trying to honestly review the episodes ahead of broadcast with no intention of pirating them, and will likely make networks even more suspicious and less inclined to help out.Hypnotic, Universal Cable ProductionsIt seems winter came sooner for some viewers than others.Four episodes from HBOs Game of Thrones fifth season leaked online Saturday night -- a day before its official bow.The leak comes as the much-talked-about online-only streaming service HBO Now launched this weekend to coincide with the release of Game of Thrones. HBO was also giving its non-TV subscribers a chance to catch the fantasy drama on Sling TV, in addition to premiering the show simultaneously in 170 countries -- in what seemed like an effort to combat the temptation to pirate the drama, which is the most illegally downloaded show in the world.The source for this latest leak appears to be someone in possession of the screeners HBO sends out, as indicated from HBOs statement issued Sunday morning on the matter: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. Were actively assessing how this breach occurred.The episodes, which appeared on public sites such as the Pirate Bay, RARBG and KickassTorrents, were downloaded more than 100,000 within the first three hours, according to TorrentFreak.com.I tweet about TV (and other things) here: @villarrealy

Items