Man in HBO's Sights for Leaking Game of Thrones Secrets

They call him the 'Spanish Spoiler'
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted May 10, 2016 5:54 PM CDT
Man in HBO's Sights for Leaking Game of Thrones Secrets
This image released by HBO shows Maisie Williams as Arya Stark in a scene from "Game of Thrones."   (Macall B. Polay/HBO via AP)

Prison is coming (perhaps) for a guy who has been spilling spoilers for upcoming Game of Thrones episodes, US News reports. The man, who IDed himself in an English-speaking YouTube video as 43-year-old Jose Senaris from Spain, says he's a digestive surgeon who also writes for a well-known Spanish TV show. He's been making "predictions" about HBO's hit show and sharing them online, mostly in Spanish, on his YouTube channel, after which they're translated into English and set free on Reddit. The problem is, his supposed prognostications are really leaks from an unnamed source, he recently confessed on Reddit, a revelation that may burn him more quickly than Drogon's morning breath. "The truth is I never know when I will receive the info," the man also known as the "Spanish Spoiler" wrote on the site last week. "I just find it in my email when the source is … able or wants to send it, so I'm as nervous as everyone else."

HBO Senior VP Jeff Cusson tells US News only "a very small group" of folks, including President Obama, got advance copies of the current sixth season (no press received copies due to piracy problems linked to previous seasons of the show.) "HBO aggressively protects its programming, but we find it counterproductive to publicly discuss specific anti-theft tactics," a tight-lipped statement from Cusson reads. Some say, per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, that HBO doesn't have the right to stifle the spoilers and force YouTube to take his videos down (which they've done before, though the videos appear to be back up as of this publication), mainly because he's simply speaking, not showing actual clips—which may make the case harder to prosecute under copyright law. But a UNC Law School professor tells US News that "if he's giving away detailed plot information, he definitely faces the possibility of being liable for criminal copyright infringement, no question." (Tech Insider explains the backstory of the Redditors fighting to keep the spoilers out in the open.)

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