"Yeah, but HBO want to offer the show on their ridiculous terms, which also isn't how life works." Actually, that's exactly how it works; you control the means of production and distribution, therefore you call the shots. He wasn't prepared to meet them part way; he looked for alternative means of distribution and found none, other than stolen copies. That's only a "compromise" if you think that there's an existing contract that gives you the right, somehow, to their product. There is no such contract, unless you are an HBO subscriber.