He won't be marched naked through town or get a molten metal crown, but a man who claims to live in Spain theoretically could find himself in an American prison for spilling secrets about upcoming episodes of "Game of Thrones," experts say.

A courtroom reckoning currently appears a distant possibility for the man whose "predictions" about the fantasy TV series are offered in Spanish-language videos posted to YouTube, before they're translated to English and posted to Reddit.

But experts say if sufficiently motivated, cable network HBO could make life miserable for the leak-spiller, who wrote during a recent "Ask Me Anything" session on the subreddit /r/freefolk that his "predictions" actually are scoops from a source.

"The truth is I never know when I will receive the info," he wrote. "I just find it in my email when the source [is] able or wants to send it."

The leaks increasingly are attracting press coverage, with the wildly popular show developing beyond the plotlines of the fantasy book series upon which it's based.

A "very small group" of people, including President Barack Obama, were sent advance copies of the current season, HBO Senior Vice President Jeff Cusson tells U.S. News. It's unclear if the spoiler's source viewed a screener or gained the information another way.

Journalists were not given advance copies of the season after past piracy issues, and HBO isn't saying much on the record about the plot-spoiling issue.

"HBO aggressively protects its programming, but we find it counterproductive to publicly discuss specific anti-theft tactics," Cusson says in a statement.

A man who identies himself as Dr. Jose Senaris is shown in a video discussing "Game of Thrones" leaks he posted to YouTube. He jokes President Barack Obama was his source. YouTube Screenshot

Though some of the spoiler's supporters scoff that HBO is misusing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to force YouTube to remove videos that don't contain copyrighted imagery, experts say it's clear that divulging TV plots does violate U.S. copyright law.

"If he's giving away detailed plot information, he definitely faces the possibility of being liable for criminal copyright infringement, no question," says Deborah Gerhardt, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law.

"The coolest thing about 'Game of Thrones' is you think, 'They're not going to go there,' and then they go there – that's such a critical part of the creativity of this work," she says. "When you have a fictional plot that's an original creation of an author, especially a plot like this one in a fantasy work, you get to the area copyright protects: creative expression."

Gerhardt says HBO's right to first publication of its creative works can be enforced using either criminal or civil penalties.

The U.S. Supreme Court, she also points out, ruled against The Nation magazine's fair use defense after it published a leaked part of ex-President Gerald Ford's memoir dealing with his pardon of predecessor Richard Nixon.

Copyright law criminalizes infringement for "commercial advantage or private financial gain;" distributing or reproducing copies of copyrighted works that "have a total retail value of more than $1,000;" and the knowing "distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution" via computer network, with potential prison sentences of up to 10 years per offense.

Tyler Ochoa, a professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law, says he agrees that the man "is pretty clearly an infringer," but says he could have some room to argue he's innocent of a crime.

That's because the criminal statute criminalizing distribution of a "work being prepared for commercial distribution" defines that as – when applied to motion pictures – one that is "made available for viewing in a motion picture exhibition facility" but not yet "made available in copies for sale to the general public in the United States."

"Right away, the Department of Justice is going to look at the statute and decide, 'Do we want to fight this battle or not?' And it's not a slam-dunk case," he says. "I think it's unlikely the Justice Department would bring the case."

Ochoa says the man is clearly guilty of civil copyright infringement, which covers derivative works – something he says the spoilers at a minimum would be considered. And, he says, "if they can find the guy and get him into a court in the United States, he could be liable for damages that he probably couldn't pay."

"This guy's trying to be sneaky by saying, 'Hey I'm not copying anything, I'm only predicting what will happen and then describing the plot in exquisite detail,'" Ochoa says. "But that's clearly not right under U.S. copyright law."

Trotter Hardy, a copyright expert and emeritus professor of law at the College of William and Mary, says he believes plot-leaking can be a crime, though he stresses he hasn't viewed the spoilers and based his analysis on the reported accuracy of the videos.

"A lot depends on how much he's revealing," he says. "But the fact that he isn't posting actual video from the show doesn't matter; the issue would be whether he's reproducing enough plot detail, because a detailed plot is certainly copyrightable as such."

In addition to the apparent violation of criminal law from the preemptive release of a copyrighted work, Hardy says another of the three-pronged statute's provisions could hook the Spaniard.

The law's criminalizing of reproducing or distributing protected works with a value greater than $1,000, he says, also seems to apply.

"With something as hot as 'Game of Thrones', a plot for a show would almost certainly be worth a lot more than $1,000," he says.

Hardy says other Western countries have similar copyright laws that could be used against the man, whom he says is probably also violating the law "in any other country where YouTube or Reddit have a presence, assuming that those countries are members of the Berne international copyright treaty or that their copyright laws are roughly similar to ours. That's true for all of Western Europe."

But whether U.S. or Spanish prosecutors would have any appetite to prosecute is unclear.

"You could ask Spanish prosecutors to bring a case," Ochoa says. "Spanish prosecutors may say, 'We've got better things to do.' The Justice Department may say it has better things to do."

The spoiler, who shows his face in his videos, did not respond to requests for comment. In a YouTube video he identified himself as Jose Senaris, 43, a digestive surgeon who writes for a popular Spanish TV show.

In slightly imprecise English, he posted a celebratory note to reddit on Monday afternoon: "Youtube has analized (sic) my counter notifications, has decided that the claims against me were invalid, and also have removed the strikes from my account. So basically, freedom of speech has ben (sic) restored! Thanks everyone for your support!"

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the whereabouts of Obama's advance "Game of Thrones" season. It would be a shocking plot twist if that edition is involved, but screeners given to prominent people have been linked to leaks in the past.