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Consumers want faster, cheaper content to stop Piracy.

TV content at a fair price with a quick release date, and industry cooperation urged to address high piracy rates.

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The government has urged further international and industry cooperation to address piracy following a survey of 2,630 Australians.

43% of Australians who had consumed digital content between March and May have admitted accessing at least one of those files illegally, according to data released by the Department of Communications.

A survey of 2630, ‘online Australians’ aged 12 and over found 33% had consumed television shows illegally. An equivalent UK survey found only 21% accessed TV illegally.

But the survey found Australians would likely stop infringing if legal content was: cheaper (39 per cent), more available (38 per cent), and had the same release date as other countries (36 per cent).

43 per cent also stated that they were not confident of what constitutes legal online content.

Percentage of survey respondents who consumed online content of which at least one item of content was consumed illegally in the last three months:

AUSTRALIA / UK
Movies 48% / 25%
Music 37% / 26%
TV 33% / 21%
Video games 22% / 18%

Proportion of internet users aged 12+ aware of lawful / licensed online services

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FreeTV Australia said, the research underscores the importance of the recent initiatives to fight online piracy in Australia.

“Free TV members put significant time and resources into making their products and services
available legitimately to viewers for free. Free TV members invest significantly in Australian content
– $1.54 billion in 2013-14 – and in a range of new and innovative delivery platforms to meet
consumer demand,” a statement said.

“Online piracy undermines this content investment, content industry business models, employment
and innovation.

“Free TV will continue to work with Government and industry to implement measures to reduce
piracy and its detrimental effects on content owners.”

ASTRA CEO Andrew Maiden said, “The rate of piracy in Australia is disappointingly high, far exceeding that in the United Kingdom, which makes you wonder why piracy is more acceptable in our culture.

“The report identifies price and timeliness as key factors in piracy, so we are hopeful the measures recently taken by the television industry to make content cheaper and faster will reduce theft.”

Bruce Meagher, Foxtel Group Director of Corporate Affairs said site blocking legislation and a major consumer education campaign had contributed to a lower piracy rate in the UK.

“We have maintained that there is no magic bullet that will eliminate online piracy. However, there are a number of measures that can be taken to encourage the vast majority of consumers to seek legitimate sources of content.

“Education is important and content owners and distributors are in the process of planning an education campaign for Australia.

“Timely and reasonably priced access to content is another. Foxtel has recently reduced its entry price and launched the Presto streaming service and continues to increase the numbers of block buster programs that are made available Express from the US and UK.

“Finally, government action such as the site blocking legislation and the soon to be finalised industry Code of Practice both give rights holders practical ways to address the issue and send the clear message to consumers that this activity is not only unacceptable but illegal.”

10 Responses

  1. I can not understand why the lazy producers of these products make and distribute in such a way that is totally insecure! Why are they blaming the consumer or the people who find it for free? If they really want to make their product secure, they would release it in a form that was actually secure. If I drop something on the ground that doesn’t have my name on it as the registered user/owner, I have myself to blame if someone else comes along and takes it. The recent court decision was totally wrong in blaming the end user for taking something online, or even sharing it, when it was actually not digitally assigned to any particular user. The big movie distributors want tax payers and government to do the copyright protection of their work for them when it should be them doing it by supplying product in a secure form to the individual user/purchaser. To date, no movies are supplied in a…

  2. Would be great if we can watch “International TV” beamed down via satellite FTA here wouldn’t stand a chance watched a few HD channels from Asia and its stunning!!! not bit starved like Foxtel 5Mbps movie channels and they call it HD……. more like HD Lite and it will get worse?

  3. They clearly still have next to no idea what the viewer wants. Instead, FTA fills its schedule with reality tv and start and end shows at a time that suits them. We want all the content available as soon as it becomes available not 6 months down the track. The networks wonder why overseas content doesn’t rate like it used to. I wonder why? The networks need to realise that. Until they do unfortunately this will always keep happening. The government needs to pull its finger out and give us proper HD channels to start with ASAP then the networks need to start playing the shows or at least make them available on the catch up services we have, when they air in America or elsewhere. A lot of people don’t wait anymore. Until they fix the current issues, this is always going to be a factor. As others have said this has been going on for years and years now. Until it happens, nothing will…

  4. Headline: Australians don’t want to be ripped off and held over a barrel by media companies.

    Australian response: yeah, really? No S*** Sherlock.

    They really don’t get it, do then.

  5. Totally agree with the comments below, how these people land these positions is beyond my understanding, because on face value they do not have a clue or they refuse to acknowledge the times we live in and as for blocking/reducing piracy, have these people including the government not realised that there are dozens of streaming sites like youtube with numerous links for each episode for practically any series you want to watch and 99% in hd, so you do not have to download. Good luck trying to police all that lot.

  6. “(Foxtel) continues to increase the numbers of block buster programs that are made available Express from the US and UK.”

    Really? If anything it is less – the list of new shows Foxtel does not show express is endless. They do it with a few high profile shows like Game of Thrones and Wayward Pines but many of the others are waaaay behind – for example the US Celebrity Apprentice aired months after it did in the US, Project Runway, Next Top Model are other examples.

  7. If I want to view say Game Of Thrones in real HD, I will source from elsewhere, and not the shoddy, blurry sludge that is passed off as HD on a certain Pay TV provider in this country. Not to mention intact without the interruption of a promo trailer before the end credits, run the promo trailer after the end credits like HBO does in the US please!

  8. FreeTV Australia again demonstrates that it wouldn’t know that its arse was on fire until it smelled the onions.

    “Free TV will continue to work with Government and industry to implement measures to reduce
    piracy”
    Presumably this means lobbying the govt for more punitive measures against people who just want to access content in a timely manner and at a fair price. It’s even simpler for TV shows – just put them on at a consistent time, allow them to build an audience, and don’t wait 6 months to do it.

    ASTRA’s Andrew Maiden is not much better. He concludes that the higher piracy rate in Aus is due to it being “more acceptable” rather than the more obvious reason of it simply being driven by lower access and higher prices than in the UK.

    Seriously, when are they going to listen to what their customers have been telling them for years instead of just watching them leave?

  9. More self serving nonsense from Free TV. Australian content is broadcast before it can be pirated, and such content is most of what viewers are watching live and same day on FTA. It is not affect by piracy.

    The networks can no longer buy up lots of high quality US content cheap and get large numbers of younger viewers watching it. That is due mostly to legal competition from Pay TV, SVOD and the internet, network scheduling and timeshifting. Piracy is a very small impact on a part of their business that declining anyway.

    If they really want to get rid of piracy global media companies need to get rid of the Australia Tax where Australians pay more for content and stop Geoblocking to create a fair market.

  10. Hmmmm piracy is not new, way back in the really early days of the internet when oztam was in its infancy and was calling the owners of it to look at these ratings things. It was at about season five of Stargate SG1 when dysfunction and chaos started at Ch7 (and 10 and 9), much the same as it is now, like The Blacklist. The internet played a big part, it allowed a group off SG1 fans (called ‘The Cabal’) to get DVD’s from overseas, from many different countries. With decrypters and other not so modern technology (1999) it allowed us to copy and send the content of the disc to other fans. Today when the old tech is cobbled with the new, watching TV is totally different, and without online piracy. Commercial television channels should stick to sport and go away, leave, depart the scene, let the big boys and girls do TV broadcasting. Dismantle oztam and burn it at the stake. With Netflix…

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