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Related HBO to Cord Cutters: You'll Never See Our Shows Paid Content

Consider this a quiet declaration of war. Talking at the VideoSchmooze NYC event yesterday, HBO Co-President Eric Kessler said that there is “no chance” the company will make its original series like Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones and True Blood available digitally to non-HBO subscribers.

Kessler explained that HBO not only considers companies like Netflix and Hulu to be competitors, but that the company also believes that “cord cutting” is a “temporary phenomenon” that will disappear as the U.S. economy improves. The idea of licensing its content to other services, he said, isn’t one that the company would seriously consider because the company considers content, and not licensing, to be its core revenue source.

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This isn’t the first time that Netflix and HBO have butted heads; despite rumors of a content partnership earlier this year, HBO has remained firmly against the idea of making its shows available digitally for anyone who isn’t already paying for the HBO family of channels. (Subscribers can access the shows via HBO Go, which is available via browser, phone and iPad, as well as through Dish Network and Roku’s online services.)

The two companies were also in competition for the rights to David Fincher’s House of Cards series, with Netflix ultimately coming out on top–a rare public failure for HBO.

MORE: Don’t Call it a Comeback: What Netflix Did Next

Graeme McMillan is a reporter at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @Graemem or on Facebook at Facebook/Graeme.McMillan. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.