Online piracy on the wane in Australia

Piracy is on the decline in Australia as access to and consumption of lawful streaming content increases, the latest online copyright infringement survey from the Department of Communications indicates.

A survey of more than 2400 internet users, conducted in March, found that 67% of consumers claim to have only lawfully consumed digital content during the preceding three months.

This is an increase from 62% in 2017 and just 57% in 2015, the year the survey was first conducted. But the proportion of consumers who report only unlawfully consuming digital content has remained static for the last three years at around 10%.

The report yet again found that quality, convenience and price are the key differentiating factors which motivate consumers to use paid services rather than engage in piracy.

The increase in consumption of lawful content was found across three of the four categories tracked — movies, TV shows and music — but experienced a slight increase for video games.

Perhaps as a result of the growing popularity of streaming services such as Netflix and Stan, movies and TV programs saw an increase in users who consumed 100% of their content legally. Likewise, the frequency of streaming consumption increased by 9% across both categories.

Average quarterly spends for digital purchases are also on the rise. The report found that consumers are on average paying $11.00 for movie subscriptions and $10.88 for TV show subscriptions, up from $8.60 and $8.30 respectively in 2017. But average spend on music subscriptions fell to $11.17 from $15.90 over the same period.

Meanwhile average spend on digital purchases increased from $3.60 to $4.00 for movies, from $4.50 to $6.30 for TV shows and from $8.80 to $10.31 for games. But digital music purchases fell from $8.10 to $6.60.

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