Six years ago, Australians were ranked as the worst internet pirates and abusers of copyright in the world.
The big reason why Australians downloaded ‘illegally’ was because legal content was not being made available on both an affordable and timely basis.
Then Netflix and other video-on-demand (VOD) streaming providers arrived in Australia in 2015 and suddenly everything changed. The market for content freed up such that it became more convenient to watch content legally than unlawfully downloading from the internet.
However, with the number of streaming providers in Australia ballooning, and content becoming increasingly fragmented behind multiple pay walls, Macquarie University economists believe that Australians could soon return to internet piracy:
With the launch of the Paramount+, Australian consumers of video streaming are arguably drowning in choice.
We now have more than a dozen “subscription video on demand” services to choose from, with many dozens more options available worldwide to anyone with a VPN to get around geoblocks.
But all this competition isn’t actually making things easier. It’s likely all this “choice” will see more of us turning to piracy to watch our favourite films and televisions shows.
The problem is that services are competing (at least in part) through offering exclusive content and original programming…
Here the problem for the consumer becomes evident. How many subscription services do you want to join? Subscribing to the six most popular video streaming services — Netflix, Stan, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Binge, and Apple TV+ — will cost you about $60 a month. How much more are you willing to pay for a new service to watch a favourites film or TV show now only that service?
The temptation to turn to piracy is clear.
They make a good point. 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.
I suspect that the cost of subscribing to multiple VOD services in order to watch everything one wants will soon escalate to what Foxtel used to provide though a single cable subscription service.
At that point, Australians will return to piracy via BitTorrents and VPNs.
