On Sunday, HBO showed the latest episode of Game of Thrones, the fifth in its seventh season. Its next episode was scheduled to make its first appearance on the broadcaster"s US cable channel this weekend - but things haven"t exactly gone to plan.
Earlier today, Reddit users reported having seen episode six, entitled Death is the Enemy, on HBO"s video platforms in Europe for around one hour, before it was finally removed. HBO later confirmed the incident, in a statement to The Verge:
We have learned that the upcoming episode of Game of Thrones was accidentally posted for a brief time on the HBO Nordic and HBO España platforms. The error appears to have originated with a third-party vendor and the episode was removed as soon as it was recognized. This is not connected to the recent cyber incident at HBO in the US.
Unfortunately for HBO, there"s no way to squeeze this toothpaste back into the tube. The episode was recorded and quickly spread across file-sharing sites around the world, days ahead of its official broadcast.
Last month, HBO said it had suffered a "cyber incident", in which hackers claimed to have stolen 1.5 terabytes of data from the company"s servers, including a script for an unaired Game of Thrones episode. The fourth episode of the season also leaked online earlier this month, after what was described as a "breach" at broadcasting partner Star India.
Source: The Verge