It seems the arrival of Netflix has made pirating movies and TV shows less appealing to Australians, according to research by consumer advocacy group, Choice.
Netflix picture from Shutterstock
The group surveyed over 1,000 Australians and found the number of people illegally downloading film and TV shows has dipped by a quarter, from 23 per cent to 17 per cent. Overall, the rate of piracy has dropped from 33 per cent to 30 per cent. Legal subscription and pay per view content services has surged from 46 per cent to 59 per cent.
“The fact is the number of people regularly pirating in Australia has dropped by a quarter since Netflix launched,” Erin Turner, Choice campaigns manager, said in a statement. “This proves once again that making content affordable and easily available is the first and most effective tactic to reduce piracy – not a draconian internet filter and notice scheme.”
Sure, the arrival of legal content services like Netflix, Stan and Presto may have contributed to lowered figures, but there are also other factors at play here. The Dallas Buyers club copyright court case has spooked a lot of people, making them think twice about illegally downloading content.
The credibility of respondents should be considered as well. How many people would admit to being pirates when being cold-called for a survey? Would you?
Either way, it’s good to see competition heating up between content service providers. This means they’ll fight to make more quality content available in Australia and may even lower the prices of their services, which is welcomed news for consumers.
Comments
13 responses to “Netlfix Has Apparently Reduced Piracy In Australia”
i know ive actually watched movies on netflix that i actually had sitting on my hard drive that came via other channels.
Its just so easy to put on a netflix movie, unless they dont have it then it becomes a problem.
I lost a hard drive to data corruption that was filled with TV shows and movies recently, and I had an epiphany. 5 years ago I would have had a conniption about losing that much data (250GB worth, I’m very picky), whereas now I could not have cared less. The drive hadn’t been touched in about 6 months and any show that I want to watch is available either on Netflix or Youtube. Yay for streaming media!
Since starting Netflix, I haven’t downloaded a single show. The reason being, the content I want is there when I want it, for a reasonable price. The range of shows is still not the greatest (when will we get Walking Dead like the US? Or the first 7 seasons of Mythbusters?) but that is undeniable proof that availability + price = piracy levels go down
Walking dead is on Presto. But Presto is so difficult and useless to use, its almost easier to just pirate that show.
I haven’t been on the US version of Netflix for a while but when I was last there, the license expired and they were removed.
If this is no longer the case, I know what I’m doing this weekend, 🙂
Wow. It’s as if when you provide a decent, reliable service at a reasonable price people will use it.
If only people had been saying this all along.
I’m the same .. other than GOT, I haven’t downloaded anything really since Netflix. The popularity of regional unlock services / VPNs for enabling access to the worldwide Netflix library should indicate that people prefer to pay a reasonable price and avoid the hassle factor of downloading where there’s another option.
What’s great about Netflix is that I got access to much more content by unblockin the US/UK Netflix regions using this trick https://goo.gl/W0WsSn
to be honest since getting netflix i havnet pirated any tv show, sill some movies, but i hardly watch anything any more, too busy playing games
Also there’s largely been little worthwhile on US TV since the launch of Netflix in Australia.
Will be interesting to see the stats come October.
This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone….
I doubt very much the Dallas Buyers Club litigation has scared people from downloading. The odds are ever in their favour. Consistently around the world the provision of affordable content has correlated with a reduction in piracy.
ive freed up about 4tb on my nas thanx netflix
Duh, this is what people have been asking for, on demand content at a reasonable cost with the option of prepaid.
Its almost as if giving us cheap and easy access to things makes us less likely to have to get them other ways.