by Thinus Ferreira
Thirty minutes in clips of the upcoming second season finale of HBO's House of the Dragon seen on M-Net (DStv 101) and MultiChoice's Showmax leaked online Tuesday night in yet another damaging blow for the Westeros-set TV franchise.
Tuesday night's leak that saw several clips - a half hour of content - from the upcoming 8th episode of the second season of House of the Dragon end up across social media, is yet another damaging leak for HBO that has been unable to prevent ongoing content leaks from both the latter parts of Game of Thrones, as well as spin-off House of the Dragon.
According to Comicbook.com Tuesday night's leak started on a TikTok account - blocked hours later but too late for Warner Bros. Discovery to prevent the content's spreading virally - where 14 clips were uploaded with over half watched over 100 000 times.
From TikTok the various clips were shared to both other TikTok accounts and also to X, formerly known as Twitter. Clips also ended up on Reddit.
HBO has struggled with multiple leaks over the past few years.
In 2017, an episode from the 7th season of Game of Thrones was leaked and watched beforehand when it ended up on illegal torrent sites. Then multiple episodes from the 8th season kept leaking before broadcast.
In August 2022 the debut episode of House of the Dragon leaked online before broadcast of the spinoff series even started. Just a few months later in October the entire first season finale of House of the Dragon leaked on illegal torrent sites as well.
Game of Thrones was the most-pirated TV show of the year globally, for several years.
Africa piracy: Limitless demand for cheap content
Frikkie Jonker, director of broadcast cybersecurity
and anti-piracy at Irdeto, a partner of MultiChoice Africa, on Tuesday said content piracy "is a type of global organised crime that
undermines the creative sector. However, what is not often discussed is what
drives content piracy. What leads people to steal content?"
MultiChoice has ramped up its efforts in tracking, raiding and prosecuting TV pirates over the past months, with more arrests to follow.
"African authorities are doing a heroic job fighting cybercrime
and content piracy. There have been huge successes in the prosecution of
content piracy operations," he says.
"To understand why Africa becomes a target for piracy, it is useful to look at
things from the perspective of a global criminal syndicate. They will often
follow the path of least resistance – and for better or worse, Africa is
attractive territory."
"When it comes to content piracy, Africa has low barriers to entry and an
almost limitless demand for cheap content," Jonker explains.
"In terms of penetration success – circumventing cybersecurity measures – they
may achieve a success rate of 70%, which compares favourably with other
territories. This – coupled with Africa's billion-strong population – is a key
supply driver of content piracy."
Jonker says "where there are few consequences, the barriers to using stolen
content are so much lower".
"Government attitudes, too, are critically important. Where a government sees
content piracy as an insignificant issue, they are allowing the sabotage of
their own country's creative and entertainment sector."
"But there are further impacts: When leading content businesses consider
entering the African market, they need the reassurance that their content
rights will be protected. Where a country is unable to provide such guarantees,
the investments do not materialise."
"In the United Kingdom, for example, police recently arrested as many as 2 000 people
who were illegally viewing streams of English Premier League (EPL) football matches.
Similar cases are being pursued in Africa."
According to Jonker "Many people believe they simply cannot afford to pay for content. Entertainment
often takes a back seat behind the need to put food on the table."
"To some extent, premium content is a luxury, so one can understand this
perception. However, pricing innovation by content platforms has led to
entertainment packages at almost every price point. Financial difficulty is no
longer an excuse for content piracy."
"A content sector such as pay-TV has extremely tight margins. Up to 80% of
revenue generated goes into producing and securing content. Given these
margins, any content theft threatens the viability of the entire industry."
"Major productions across Africa – in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania,
Mozambique, and many other countries – sustain thousands of jobs in production,
performance, set and costume design, all the way through to catering, transport
and accommodation. The war on piracy is a war to protect these jobs."
