by Thinus Ferreira
HBO's new Game of Thrones prequel drama series, House of the Dragon, has leaked online over the weekend - similar to what happened with the latter seasons of the GoT series - with thousands of people worldwide who have already pirate-watched the start of the series before its linear TV debut on Monday.
Thousands of people started torrenting, sharing and downloading the first episode of House of the Dragon on late Saturday/early Sunday almost 24 hours before it was set to make its TV debut, with a pristine high-definition (HD) 1080p, full surround sound version of the first episode that was shared, complete with an HBO logo in the top-right corner and enabled subtitling in various languages.
The leak and thousands of people watching it as a download on various devices instead of television has the potential to negatively impact House of the Dragon's eventual linear TV debut rating with viewership lower in the United States and other countries like M-Net in South Africa than it potentially would have been.
TV critics and journalists in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and some other countries like the Middle East were given access to digital screeners beforehand of the first six episodes for reviews which appeared last week on Friday, but those copies contain a digital watermark to identify which journalist it was sent to.
HBO and M-Net (DStv 101) which will be carrying House of the Dragon in South Africa and across sub-Saharan Africa as an Express from the US title didn't give media digital screeners with M-Net which only held two Friday-night physical screening events in Johannesburg and Cape Town for certain media after the review embargo had already lapsed.
Two weeks ago Torrentfreak reported that HBO lawyers in California issued a stern DMCA takedown request for a Reddit post, after a Reddit user posted the plotline and episode synopsis, along with spoilers, on the platform.
While the new TV series closely adhered to George R.R. Martin's Fire & Ice book which is set 172 years before the events of Game of Thrones and tells the story of the fall of the House of Targaryen dynasty, viewers don't know which events, characters and what dragons will be featured in what episodes, which is spoiled in the episode synopsis and plot outlines.
Just like the story being told in House of the Dragon - one of history repeating itself - the show itself is repeating what happened before.
The later seasons of Game of Thrones, including almost all of the episodes of the widely-panned 8th and final season leaked online, with Game of Thrones that was the most-pirated TV show of the year globally for several years.
HBO's House of the Dragon and Amazon Prime Video's upcoming fantasy drama series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power which will debut in September billed as the most-expensive TV series ever made, are both very strong contenders to make 2022's list of most-pirated TV shows this year.
