HBO, Annoyed by Game of Thrones Leaks, Takes it Out On Poor Hipster Bar

TV Features Game of Thrones

Videology is a Brooklyn bar that shows every episode of Game of Thrones live. There are many bars in this country that show Game of Thrones live, because some people like watching their favorite shows in a community atmosphere, and bars like selling beer and food. There are at least seven other bars in Brooklyn alone that show GoT.

So why, among these, did Videology just get a cease-and-desist letter from HBO? As the Daily News reports, nobody really knows, but it’s happening anyway.

“As a pay subscription service, HBO should not be made available in public establishments,” the network told the Daily News in a statement. “When it does happen, it is of particular concern when there is an attempt to profit off the programming.”

Videology is located on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, which used to be the hipster capital of the world and is now the nouveau-hipster capital of the world (a nouveau-hipster is a hipster but with lots of money). The bar will bow to HBO’s will, since technically it’s their right to protect their content in any way they see fit, but it does seem like a rather extreme move considering that upwards of one million people pirate their show every week, and Videology’s weekly screening is less than a drop in the ocean compared to those numbers. One theory is that HBO is beyond annoyed that someone leaked the first four episodes of this season, and are cracking down across the board, in which case Videology might just be the first casualty of a broader movement.

“Seeing that many other bars in the neighborhood and around the city were showing it, we made the assumption that HBO believed, as we do, that public screenings were in the best interest of both HBO and the fans, since ‘GOT’ is enjoyed on a deeper level as a communal event,” Wendy Chamberlain, co-owner of Videology, told the Daily News. “But in the end, it’s not up to us.”

Maybe HBO just hates hipsters. Hipsters are, after all, the minor Lannisters of the real world.

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