Footage from the hit HBO series.

All of the Game of Thrones loyal fans were stunned on Sunday when Videology, a Brooklyn bar, suddenly ended their screening party which happened two years in a row. The reason for this was that they got a “cease and desist” letter from none other than HBO. In order to celebrate the start of the new season Videology threw a party for which they charged a cover which was meant for paying the food and drinks, as said by the Videology co owner Wendy Chamberlain. The people in HBO saw this move as trying to make profit from the show. HBO is a pay subscription service and it should not be available in public places said the letter from HBO. When this happens it is in our best interest that the ones who are emitting the program don’t attempt to make a profit out of it. We have always taken measures against such actions and we have done this for almost ten years back.

The Game of Thrones series have been the most illegally downloaded television show in the year of 2014, according to site Torrent Freak which specializes in piracy tracking. In 2014 the HBO programming president spoke about this matter to Entertainment Weekly that the piracy was “a compliment of sorts,” and that it hasn’t affected the DVD sales in any way. In 2013 Jeff Bewkes (Time Warner CEO) said that the huge amount of piracy which surrounds the franchise Game of Thrones is “better than an Emmy.” But now it seems like the HBO is changing their tune. The first four episodes of the new season have been leaked before the scheduled premier of the epic thriller which caused HBO to track down the IP addresses of the people who have downloaded, shared or uploaded the episodes.

According to a thread that was found on Reddit there was a user that has received a warning letter from HBO which stated that he should immediately stop future downloading or uploading of their content without being given permission. All of the four new episodes were downloaded by torrents over 1.7 million times in 24 hours. The reason why HBO has changed their opinion on this matter may be the fact that the cost of production for each episode of season five was around 6 million dollars.