Australian Netflix Launch Ushers Fall in Piracy

Making content available prevents piracy. Everyone knows it, including Hollywood (though, it’d rather use the situation as an excuse for suing users and screwing video-on-demand services). It’s so simple it shouldn’t need saying. Yet it does, over and over. The latest proof is the recent launch of video-on-demand service Netflix in Australia.

Since Netflix expanded to Australia in March of this year, there has been a 29% decrease in piracy amongst adults aged 18-64, with the number of adults in the same age bracket using video-on-demand services has risen by 32%, according to a survey conducted by the IP Awareness Foundation. While correlation does not prove causation, further answers given during the study indicated that at least one-third of former pirates put the rise of video-on-demand services forward as the reason for ceasing to download illegal content.

“Piracy has always needed a range of measures to tackle the problem as we all know there is no silver bullet. This fall in piracy rates is definitely largely attributable to the combination of the government’s new legislation, plus the ongoing efforts of the creative industries to continue delivering great content at accessible prices to Australian consumers and the work being done to educate consumers about the impact of copyright theft,” Lori Flekser, Executive Director of IP Awareness, said.

Now, if only we could do something about geo-blocking…

Thank you Kotaku for providing us with this information.