It's out on itunes the same day in HD for $3.5 an episode (unless you are in australia).

Season 3 isn't out on itunes in Canada at all yet. The only way for me to watch Season 3 is to subscribe to the $100/month + $20/month cable package that carries HBO.

I've not bothered to pirate it, yet.

There's a way to trick your iTunes into thinking you're not in Canada. All you need is a second account and a gift card situated in the US. (I've seen people in the US use this trick in reverse to get BBC shows in America without pirating them.) Granted, it's retarded (and potentially still illegal) that people should have to do this in order to pay for content rather than pirate...but the option is there.

Seems like a lot of effort to pay people that seem to go out of their way to stop you from buying their merchandise

I'm not setting up umpteen different itunes accounts to try to give you my money. The whole point of paying for something is that I provide the money in exchange for the product. Why should I jump through hoops in addition to that?

There are easier options if I care. But to be honest, right now I don't.

I just checked. You can't buy Game of Thrones season 3 via iTunes in the USA, but it looks like you could buy it in Australia. I tried buying an episode from the Australian iTunes store, but no luck.

Ah, I thought they offered that for everywhere, not just australia (and they're cancelling it in australia). Sorry to get your hopes up.

I read there was something coming in next season to prevent same time iTunes release in Australia? Is this currently the case as well?

Yes, Foxtel is moving to block the itunes episodes from getting a speedy release. Not until next season though so we'll see if they succeed.

It is interesting, I don't think it will actually help them much. If you have Foxtel already you can likely get the whole of showtime for around the same price your paying on itunes for Game of Thrones. (While the season is going and there are day 4 eps a month.)

Not sure they are going to convince people that don't have Foxtel that they should pay $60+ a month for the service purely on the back of Game of Thrones.

Especially since the only part of the market they can hope to capture with this move is "people who already pay for game of thrones legally over itunes". I would think that most of those people also know how to torrent but choose not to and foxtel just pissed them off, I doubt they happily switch services.

Thanks. I didn't realize that! Will check it out.