Study finds almost half of Australian digital users pirate content

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the results highlighted the importance of governments working with industry to address infringement issues, and that a range of measures were needed to tackle the problem properly.

The government recently passed anti-piracy legislation, which will require internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to websites that host material that infringes copyright. However, concerns remain about the effectiveness of such measures, which are easily bypassed by those who are even minimally tech-savvy. It will also require ISPs to write to customers alerting them to their piracy and encouraging them to stop.

The new study found, however, that only 21 per cent of those surveyed would be encouraged to stop infringing if they received a letter from their ISP saying their account would be suspended.

In the study, 39 per cent said they would probably stop infringing if legal content were cheaper, 38 per cent said they would stop if more content were available locally, and the same number said they would stop if movies and TV were released in Australia at the same time as they were overseas.

One notable finding in the study appeared to back up a reason commonly proffered by pirates: that they use infringing content as a method of testing what content to buy in future. For each content type surveyed, those who consumed a mix of legal and illegal content spent more money over a three-month period than those who consumed 100 per cent of their content legally.

The director of campaigns and communications at consumer rights group Choice, Matt Levey, said the fact that most pirates said letters from ISPs would have no impact on them made the government's current policies look pointless.

"This flies in the face of the current industry plan to send 'education notices' to internet users who have allegedly pirated content," Mr Levey said.

"Based on the government's own research, the education notice scheme that has been submitted for approval is the least effective option for stopping piracy. We have to ask why is the industry so keen to pursue this scheme when the research shows there are easier, better options available?"

Chief executive for pay-TV industry lobby group Astra, Andrew Maiden, said the fact that the report identified price and timeliness as key factors in piracy made him hopeful that the measures recently taken by the television industry to make content cheaper and faster would reduce theft.

"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," Mr Maiden said.

Industry insiders hope the rise of streaming services like Netflix, Stan, Presto and Quickflix will arrest the high piracy rates in Australia. Most respondents to the survey said that to convince them to pay for digital movies, a single movie download would need to be priced at $5 and a movie subscription service would need to be priced at $10 a month.

That is roughly the price of most streaming services, but users need to subscribe to multiple services to gain access to all movies.

Meanwhile, the survey found most digital music consumers believed a single music track download should be priced at $1.19 and a music subscription service would need to be priced at $5 a month to attract them away from piracy.

Only one in three or 33 per cent of the Australians surveyed thought it was morally wrong to use illegal sites, whereas 32 per cent said they were most reticent about piracy because of fears they would unknowingly download viruses, malware and spyware.

With Dominic White