In 2014, Australia was ranked among the worst jurisdictions in the world for online piracy and abuse of copyright.
The main reason was because content was not made available to Australians on an affordable and timely basis. Therefore, Aussies instead turned to illegal downloading via BitTorrents and other means.
The situation changed when Netflix stormed onto the Australian market in 2015, alongside local players like Stan. Suddenly content was readily available at affordable prices, and the number of Australians pirating movies and television plummeted from 49% to just 21% between 2015 and 2018, according to federal government data.
The past seven years has witnessed a proliferation of streaming services encompassing television, music and video games. Australians have responded in a big way, spending a whopping $4.4 billion last year on subscription streaming services, according to PwC:
PwC’s 2022 Australian Media and Entertainment Outlook says households averaged about 2.6 television streaming services in 2021 and spent about $40 per month…
More than 75 per cent of households paid for at least one streaming service last year, a figure which is expected to increase to 80 per cent by the end of this year…
Australians have about 6.5 premium subscriptions from about 115 video-on-demand, audio, news and lifestyle content and gaming platforms.
The tide is beginning to turn, however, with internet piracy again on the rise. This increase is being attributed, at least in part, to the plethora of streaming services now available. Many people are simply unwilling to pay for multiple services when each one offers only a small number of popular TV shows or movies:
Every major streaming service only has a handful of really big hits. To access them all, a viewer would have to pay almost $70 a month for basic access, without sport streaming like Kayo or specialist apps dedicated to particular genres, which could double that…
“As cost of living pressures rise in Australia, it’s likely that some consumers will become more discerning about what they spend their money on, and may supplement or replace some of their streaming subscriptions with piracy,” [RMIT University Associate Professor Ramon Lobato said]…
“When we’ve profiled people who pirate, the majority are university educated, they earn over $90,000 a year, and they subscribe to three plus subscription services,” Pettinger said. “They are prolific content consumers, so it brings us back to they feel they have some sort of entitlement to piracy because they are already paying for services.” [Amy Pettinger, general manger of the industry funded anti-piracy group Creative Content Australia said]…
Users are not required to subscribe to multiple music subscription services (e.g. Spotify or YouTube Music) to get access to their favourite artists. They can subscribe to only one.
Yet users of subscription television and movie services are required to be members of multiple providers, which has become increasingly costly as the number of players has risen.
Clearly, Australians are hitting saturation point on subscription services, and are once again returning to piracy via BitTorrents and VPNs to fulfill their needs.
