It may have taken less effort to secure a seat on the Iron Throne. For the last two weeks, Donn Gurule had been searching for a Chicago bar that shows “Game of Thrones,” HBO’s popular fantasy drama.
The first bar he visited turned him away because there was no room, Gurule said. The second bar he tried wasn’t showing an episode that week. Finally, on Sunday, he entered mecca: The Burlington bar in the Logan Square neighborhood was airing “Game of Thrones” on two televisions. Gurule, who recently moved from California to the Lakeview neighborhood, snagged a coveted fold-out chair and watched the episode among 40-plus other patrons.
Nevermind that Gurule, 46, is an HBO subscriber and could watch “Game of Thrones” at home.
“(The show) is so much more fun with an audience,” Gurule said. “It makes you appreciate the humor and some of the details you wouldn’t otherwise see.”
Boisterous “Game of Thrones” watch parties, where bar patrons cheer the show’s gruesome deaths and laugh at Tyrion-delivered one-liners, may be dying a slow death as HBO cracks down on public screenings of the show.
Geek Bar Beta in Wicker Park received a cease-and-desist letter last month from HBO after advertising its free Season 5 premiere watch party on Facebook. And it is not the only establishment to be told “Game” over. HBO sent a similar letter to a Brooklyn bar two weeks ago, according to media reports, and has sent at least five takedown notices to Twitter concerning its Periscope live-streaming service after some fans used the app to broadcast the show for free to online followers.
HBO’s crusade to shut down public screenings of its shows is not new but has become recently heated as the network battles piracy of “Game of Thrones” (a record 8 million viewers watched the April 12 Season 5 premiere) and new technologies such as Periscope and Meerkat, which allow anyone with an iPhone or computer to follow along with live broadcasts (and, in the case of Periscope, watch the videos up to 24 hours after they are posted). A decade ago HBO sent cease-and-desist letters to bars and restaurants, including some in Chicago, that showed “The Sopranos.”
HBO spokesman Jeff Cusson said in a statement that HBO is a pay subscription service that “should not be made available in public establishments. When it does happen, it is of particular concern when there is an attempt by such places to profit off of programming on the service.”
Northwestern University law professor Peter DiCola said it is HBO’s right to threaten penalties because screenings of the show at bars and via live-streaming services can be considered unauthorized public performances, which are illegal under federal law.
DiCola said Periscope users who live-stream the show “are almost certainly engaging in public performances on their face, because the videos they are created are being ‘transmitted’ to the public.”
Twitter took down the flagged “Game of Thrones” broadcasts on Periscope. Meerkat, an app similar to Periscope, but whose videos are not saved, has received no complaints from HBO as of last week, Meerkat founder Ben Rubin said.
So why are bars allowed to show out-of-town sporting events? DiCola said bars can show some TV shows and live sports if they pay their cable or satellite provider a commercial fee, which is typically more than a residential fee.
A DirecTV spokesman said the prices for showing its NFL Sunday Ticket package for out-of-market football games, for example, vary based on the size of the bar but could be 10 times what a fan at home pays for the season-long service. Still, some users have found a way to illegally screen these shows as well. DirecTV spokesman Robert Mercer said his company has had instances where bars have used a residential account to get a lower rate on sports packages, which violates federal law.
HBO, meanwhile, is intended to be watched at home, Cusson said. Even though some fans may host large watch parties at their houses, HBO is targeting the bar screenings.
“You can have friends over (to watch the show), but when you’re at a bar with people, many of whom of are strangers, that’s different,” said DiCola, who specializes in music copyright law. “If you’re a bar owner, your disagreement is with Congress, not with HBO.”
But Geek Bar owner David Zoltan said his beef is with HBO. He said the cease-and-desist letter was a “huge surprise” because “Game of Thrones” is so entrenched in geek culture.
“It’s like they’re thumbing their noses at geeks,” Zoltan said. “The geeks are the core audience. Without the geeks, ‘Game of Thrones’ would have never gotten this far.”
Despite the letter, multiple “Game of Thrones” posters decorate the walls and windows of Geek Bar, which opened in October, because “we love the show and it’s part of what the people are talking about in the bar,” Zoltan said.
So on Sundays, Geek Bar closes for a private event at 8 p.m., which is the time “Game of Thrones” airs, and stops serving food and drink, Zoltan said. As to whether “Game of Thrones” is screened at the bar, Zoltan is coy.
“What happens at that private event is anybody’s guess,” Zoltan said. “We have to be very careful. We can’t afford to fight HBO’s legal team.”
It’s unclear how many Chicago bars show “Game of Thrones” to their customers because not all of them advertise their watch parties online. Burlington bartender Sean Loftus said the bar began hosting “Game of Thrones” watch parties last year after screening “Breaking Bad,” AMC’s popular show about a drug-dealing high school chemistry teacher.
Loftus said The Burlington also showed two episodes of HBO’s crime drama “True Detective” last year, but it’s “Game of Thrones” that has drawn the biggest reaction from patrons. One party even went viral after Loftus videotaped the bar’s reaction to a particularly gruesome death.
“It’s a big draw for Sunday,” Loftus said.
Loftus said he thought the screenings were legal because the bar does not charge a cover for the party and the TV’s screen is smaller than 55 inches, but HBO rules don’t mention anything about TV size. Loftus said he hasn’t heard anything from HBO and knows other bars show “Game of Thrones” without getting in trouble.
The network’s legal tactics have scared off at least one bar owner. Fat Cat co-owner Cy Oldham said she tried to get HBO a few years ago to show “Game of Thrones” at her Uptown bar but was told by her DirecTV representative that bars are not allowed to have HBO.
Oldham said it wasn’t worth the risk of showing “Game of Thrones” illegally even though her bar has found success hosting “Mad Men” and “Walking Dead” watch parties. Oldham said AMC, which airs both shows, has been “very supportive of the showings.”
Oldham said about 50 people pack into the back room of her bar each Sunday to watch the shows and partake in the corresponding themed food and cocktails, estimating it represents about 15 to 20 percent of her Sunday business. Season premieres and finales draw 150 patrons, Oldham said.
“There’s something definitely about viewing parties and people talking about (the show) during the commercials,” Oldham said. “I think those (TV shows) are the type of things that people like to share with other people.”
For those bars that do show “Game of Thrones,” Frank Janisch has some advice: “Have good lawyers.”
Janisch, former owner of Frankie J’s, used to host elaborate “Sopranos” watch parties including re-enactments of previous episodes at his Uptown restaurant until HBO notified him.
Janisch said he ducked HBO representatives for as long as he could but when he received the cease-and-desist letter, by fax, he stopped showing the HBO mob drama immediately.
“Them slamming the door on me really stung me pretty good,” said Janisch, who now lives in Arizona. “Literally, HBO whacked me.”
