Game of Thrones spoilers removed from YouTube by HBO

Producers have worked hard to stop people spoiling the show – including forcing cast members to lie about their characters' fate

Emilia Clarke as Daenarys Targaryen 'Mother of Dragons' (HBO)

HBO appears to be using copyright law to stop people spoiling Game of Thrones.

People across the internet are having videos predicting what will happen in the TV show taken down, apparently to stop the spread of spoilers.

Since the show premiered last month, networks have been aggressively pursuing people who share the show online. But it is also taking down others who are simply predicting what will happen – apparently whether or not they use images from the programme.

Producers have worked hard throughout the filming and release of Game of Thrones to ensure that spoilers don’t get out. Certain parts of the plot were even hidden from people working on the show so that they would be kept secret, people working on it have said.

And it appears that aggressive secrecy has continued even onto the internet. People are finding that videos in which they predict what will happen in the programme are being removed on copyright grounds.

The creator of some of those videos, a user known as Frikidoctor, has been remarkably accurate with his predictions about what will happen in each episode. He claims to have a source close to the show who tells him what will happen, and then shares that information through YouTube.

But those videos are being removed “due to a copyright claim by Home Box Office Inc”, according to the error page that shows up when viewers try to watch one of them.

Frikidoctor said that previous videos he posted and then had taken down did include some images from Game of Thrones. But the most recent one included him dressed in a Mexican wrestler costume predicting what would happen in an upcoming video.

“In the last two videos they took down I had some frames from teasers and trailers they decided to share with everyone for promotional purposes,” he told TorrentFreak. “This time the video did not have a single frame or sound that belongs to HBO.”

The user has said that he is going to refrain from posting predictions about the show for now.