Piracy and Copyright in Australia

Americans have it good, too good it seems for the majority of English-speaking nations who are now resorting to piracy to access the quality content that is censored, delayed and more expensive by the time Australians have the chance to watch their favourite American TV shows.

Choice, an Australian independent and transparent consumer watchdog has published a report, finding that most pirates are willing to pay for the content that they download illegally, however as Americans get their content for significantly less, it seems unfair that Australians have to pay more than 500% extra on some things for the same or worse service. Their survey also found that more than half of Australian pirates attempt to stream content legally before resorting to illegal downloading of content.

Another interesting development worth a look at is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and how it may affect piracy rates in Australia. American Robert Reich calls the TPP “The Worst Trade Deal You’ve Never Heard Of”, white political activist group GetUp! Australia has referenced it as “The dirtiest trade deal you’ve never heard of”. These views have been given on the fact that signatory governments can now be sued on legislation that has “Unfairly” diminished a company’s profits. The TPP will cover two-fifths of the world’s economy if all nations that have been offered to join accept their offers. The problem with this is quite simply that legislation that has been implemented to protect vulnerable people such as No-Smoking laws and Drug laws can be heard before a tribunal, behind closed doors simply because it restricts a company’s bottom line. This affects privacy laws because companies such as Netflix can sue the Australian government for implementing pro-piracy laws and pirates could even end up in jail!

And it’s not just activists fighting against unfair anti-piracy laws. ISPs such as iiNet are fighting against obviously bogus copyright laws, while at the same time not condoning piracy. However, they do believe that the Australian Government has completely missed the point on copyright laws. iiNet says that the Hollywood solutions to piracy are bogus and that schemes such as the three-strikes policy would cost ISPs to operate and maintain. Their stance is that “Australians want their content at the same time as the rest of the world. It isn’t that our customers don’t want to pay for content, it’s that they want to be able to access content at the same time as their Facebook friends or Twitter followers.”. iiNet don’t believe that Australian pirates are trying to evade paying for their content, they simply want to be treated fairly and equally (and in this world, that is hard to achieve!)

I personally believe that piracy should be legal as long as a pirate can prove that they, as a consumer can prove that they were mistreated or discriminated by a content-provider. Such breaches are considered illegal or at the very least highly-immoral on the grounds of discriminating against someone’s geographical location. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, hosted a Ted talk on the danger of a single story, in which she states that when she entered in to an American college her roommate assumed that Chimamanda didn’t not know how to use a stove. That is an example of discrimination based on where someone lives and Netflix and Hulu are doing the exact same thing.