Yahoo News Indian police arrest four for Game of Thrones leak
It has generally been accepted that Game of Thrones is the most pirated show in TV history, but when an episode of the fantasy series was leaked before its premiere date earlier this month, the world’s law enforcement sprung into action.
The Spoils of War was leaked on August 4, days before it was due to air globally.
Four people have already been arrested in India on suspicion of leaking the episode and it has now been established that the leak came from the company that stores the series for India’s (legal) streaming website Hotstar.
Three of the arrested are employees of Prime Focus, a Mumbai-based company, and one is a former employee.
The show produced by HBO has seen several leaks over the years. Most recently a group of hackers broke into HBO’s servers and reportedly stole 1.5 terabytes of data, and have looted a list of personal phone numbers and email addresses for Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, and Emilia Clark.
A month’s worth of emails from HBO’s vice president for film programming, Leslie Cohen, is also said to be part of the latest leak.
The hackers letter to HBO reportedly states: ‘Our demand is clear and Non-Negotiable: We want XXXX dollars to stop leaking your Data. HBO spends 12 million for Market Research and 5 million for GOT7 advertisements. So consider us another budget for your advertisements!’
The note, written by ‘Mr. Smith,’ adds that the deadline for that payment is three days from when the letter was sent.
The rest of the letter lists the ways HBO could suffer from the full leak, from upsetting fans to informing competitors.
‘Leakage will be your worst nightmare, so make a wise decision!’ it reads before ending with an image of the Night King villain from Game of Thrones..
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