Twitter says it will look into suspending accounts found to be broadcasting copyrighted material on its new live-streaming service Periscope, but is not monitoring the streaming service itself.

This morning’s much anticipated Game of Thrones season five premiere saw dozens of live streams of the show made available on the app from across the world, with parent company Twitter saying it will act to shut them down if streams are reported to it by other users.

A spokesperson for Twitter pointed to its terms of service which state: “In appropriate circumstances, Periscope will also terminate a user’s account if the user is determined to be a repeat infringer.”

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“Any violation of the terms of use are taken seriously,” the spokesperson said. “We work together with our community to ensure our content rules are respected. Report any content that violates our Community Guidelines.”

Australia leads the world in the pirating of Game of Thrones, accounting for 11.6 percent of the show’s downloads, although many of the Persicope feeds seen by Mumbrella originated from north and central America.

Whilst the feeds seen this morning by Mumbrella were poor quality, with one user quipping they were “waiting for the torrent”, the new channel for pirating content will increasingly become a concern for copyright holders as the technology improves.

Internet piracy and copyright are in the spotlight given last week’s Federal Court decision to force internet service providers (ISPs) to reveal the identities of customers who downloaded and shared the film Dallas Buyers Club for free from torrent sites.

Yesterday, four episodes of the new season of Game of Thrones’s were leaked online, sending many avid viewers into a downloading frenzy.

Periscope’s terms of service state that the site reserves “the right to remove Content alleged to be infringing without prior notice and at our sole discretion”.

Sam Buckingham-Jones