What, me pirate?

Yes, I admit  I am a Game of Thrones fan (thank you eldest son for pointing me to yet another hour of time I’ll never get back). And, I pay HBO each month to access its service to watch Thrones, old and new episodes. I’m pretty sure said son, who has never actually had his own subscription to HBO—or to a pay-TV provider, for that matter—is either:

1. Watching it with friends who have a pay-TV subscription, or,
2. Watching it on a pirate site.

My guess, educated mind you, is No. 2. He is, after all, just graduated from college, still taking classes, and surrounded by other college-aged friends.

He also isn’t alone. TorrentFreak reports that the season premiere set a record with more than 163,000 people sharing the show in the hours after the first torrent of the show was uploaded, and estimated total downloads at over a million. TF said London was the top pirate city and the U.S. the top-pirating country. Check out TorrentFreak’s story for more.

Mind you, pirates don’t have HBO worries,even millions of them. HBO’s President of Programming Michael Lombardo, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, said HBO sees the piracy as “a compliment of sorts.”

“The demand is there,” he said, “(it’s) something that comes along with having a wildly successful show on a subscription network.”

His main concern? The quality of the downloads being shared. “The production values of this show are so incredible. So I’m hoping that in the purloined different generation of cuts that the show is holding up.”