Twitter Inc., responding to reports that people used its Periscope live-video service to stream HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” said the app shouldn’t be used for piracy.

“Periscope’s content policy expressly prohibits broadcasting copyright-protected content,” Lauren Jones, a spokeswoman for Twitter, said Monday in an e-mail.

The Australian website Mumbrella reported that dozens of people used Periscope to broadcast Sunday night’s Season 5 premiere of “Game of Thrones” to their friends online.

Periscope, acquired by Twitter this year, and rival Meerkat are giving people who don’t want to pay for shows a new way to find them. The apps allow users to stream video to their friends in real time. The Periscope users tracked by Mumbrella trained cameras on living-room televisions to produce low-quality broadcasts of “Game of Thrones.”

They’re only the latest tool for piracy. Ahead of the season premiere on Sunday, HBO was already battling an online leak of the season’s first four episodes from “Game of Thrones,” which ranks as one of the world’s most-pirated shows, according to TorrentFreak, a website that covers piracy.

The new episodes have been downloaded more than 1 million times, according to TorrentFreak.

That’s a much bigger threat to HBO than currently posed by Periscope or Meerkat. Fewer than 60,000 live-streams per day -- of any content -- are being posted by either app, Quartz reported earlier this month.

Periscope’s response to piracy can range from removing the content to terminating users’ accounts, according to a terms-of-use statement referred to by Twitter. To trigger a review, Periscope requires a so-called take-down notice to be filed by the copyright holder.

“We will respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement that comply with applicable law and are properly provided to us,” Twitter on its website.

A spokesman for HBO, the premium cable channel owned by Time Warner Inc., had no immediate comment.