‘Game of Thrones’ season 5, Periscope, and the great streaming debate

How big of a threat is Periscope to “Game of Thrones” and HBO at the moment? Not enormous, but this is obviously something that the network wants to nip in the bud.

Before we say anything else here, let’s start with offering up a quick education for the unaware. Periscope is the new app that just made its way into pop-culture consciousness mere weeks ago. It is thought of already as one of the ideal live-streaming smartphone apps. Twitter also has already acquired it, which makes it a very easy compliment to the service they already provide. However, it took almost zero amount of time at all in order for some people out there to realize that they could take advantage of this for piracy reasons.

A statement spread around the internet from HBO makes it known that they clearly have some concerns when it comes to Periscope, and they don’t necessarily agree with the service’s current policy of relying on users for the most part to send potential notices of copyright violations:

“We are aware of Periscope and have sent take down notices … In general, we feel developers should have tools which proactively prevent mass copyright infringement from occurring on their apps and not be solely reliant upon notifications.”

Admittedly, this is not easy to catch, given that streams posted are of the “you have to be there” capacity, and are not kept on the app permanently. Showing a strong stance early is important for HBO, but we cannot imagine that this is a serious threat. How many people are going to watch to watch this show via someone pointing their phone at the TV? This cannot be good quality.

If you want to get some other news related to what lies ahead on “Game of Thrones,” head over to this link. Also, you can sign up to get some other throne-worthy TV updates on everything we cover, courtesy of our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: HBO.)