A decade ago, Australia was ranked as one of the worst nations on earth for online piracy.
The main factor driving this piracy was that content was not available to Australians on an affordable and timely basis.
This forced Australians to turn to illegally download movies and television shows via BitTorrents and other file sharing programs.
The situation finally changed when Netflix launched in Australia in 2015, alongside local players like Stan.
All of a sudden content was readily available for a low monthly fee, and the number of Australians pirating movies and television rapidly dropped.
The last eight years has seen a proliferation of streaming services encompassing television, music and video games.
In video steaming alone, Canstar Blue reports there are now 14 different streaming services to choose from. Most have also increased their prices over the past two years.
Australians are spoilt for choice and many have grown frustrated with the sheer number of services available and the escalating costs of accessing television and movies.
According to a recent YouGov survey of 1000 people aged over 18, 43% of Australians are frustrated with how many different entertainment platforms they pay for in a month, collectively spending nearly $6 billion a year on subscription entertainment.
Two in five Aussies also agreed subscription-based TV was not good value for money.
As a result, Australians are once again turning to internet piracy.
After two years of decline, piracy rates have rebounded with one-in-four Australians admitting to having unlawfully consumed online media in 2022. That’s up from 15% who pirated content in 2015.
Australians are not required to subscribe to multiple music subscription services to get access to their favourite artists. They can subscribe to only one (e.g. Spotify or YouTube Music).
By contrast, consumers of television and movie services are required to subscribe to multiple platforms, which has become increasingly costly as the number of services has ballooned and subscription prices have risen.
Australians have hit saturation point with video streaming and are once again returning to piracy via file sharing to satisfy their needs.
