entombed in the shrine of zeroes and ones

"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.