Research commissioned by the Department of Communications has found a reduction in the cost of legal content to be most commonly cited factor in making online pirates stop infringing.The research, carried out by TNS Australia, consisting of 2,630 interviews, found that 43 per cent of Australians who had consumed digital content in the period surveyed consumed at least one of those files illegally.
Movies (48 per cent) recorded the highest rate of any illegal consumption, followed by music (37 per cent), TV programs (33 per cent) and video games (22 per cent).
In total, the report estimates that in the first quarter of 2015, 254 million music tracks, 95 million movies, 82 million TV programs and 9 million video games were illegally consumed online.
A reduction in the cost of legal content was the most commonly cited factor that would encourage people to stop infringing (39 per cent), followed by legal content being more available (38 per cent) and being available as soon as it is released elsewhere (36 per cent).
However, the threat of receiving a letter from their ISP ranked as encouragement to stop infringing for only around two in ten respondents.
Among the respondents, 21 per cent stated they would be encouraged to stop infringing if they received a letter saying their account would be suspended, 17 per cent if the letter indicated their account had been used to infringe and 17 per cent if the letter said their internet speed would be restricted.
“These results suggest that while there is a role for a copyright notice scheme code in Australia to assist in fighting infringement, more work needs to be done to make legal content more affordable and more available, to combat the root causes of infringing activity,” Communications Alliance CEO John Stanton stated in response to the research.
“It is interesting that almost three quarters of those internet users who consumed content illegally were also accessing content legally – they were apparently not just looking exclusively for a ‘free ride’, but also were chasing the convenience that comes with ready availability of content.”
