THE movie industry is readying a plan to block up to 100 illegal download sites the minute the legal framework has been established and expects the move to result in an “immediate and dramatic” drop in piracy.

In a speech at the Australian International Movie Convention on the Gold Coast today, Village Roadshow boss Graham Burke praised both sides of politics for site-blocking legislation and said the industry was just waiting on a court decision to set the rules of engagement and establish the precedent for blocking websites.

“What site-blocking is going to do is make it very hard and when it becomes hard and we deploy our campaigns, I am confident that we will get a very positive outcome,” he said.

“If you look at Korea, which is a Western-style democracy where similar steps have been taken, and the UK, the outcome has been extremely positive.

“Once we take down 100 criminal websites we will get an immediate and dramatic effect. Australians would no more go into whip a Mars bar off the shelf than pirate a movie. Some will but the bulk of people are decent and law-abiding.”

He described the pirates and those who facilitate such sites as “Leeches — thieves — they employ no one — pay no Australian tax and are criminals” and said the ongoing problem could be combated by a combination of education, site-blocking legislation, co-operation from big internet players such Google, fining offenders, and making sure timely content was available.

Mr Burke said it would not be viable to make crowd-pleasing hits such as Red Dog, Muriel’s Wedding or Gallipoli if illegal downloading continued unchecked.

“Many people think this is a victimless crime,” Mr Burke said yesterday. “It’s not — and they haven’t thought through that if this were to continue, there will be no Red Dog, there will be no Mad Max, there will be no Star Wars, there will be no creativity. If we don’t solve this — it’s over.”

Mr Burke also warned of the dangers faced by consumers, particularly children, in being exposed to gaming and hard-core pornography and potentially hacking and identity theft by visiting illegal downloading sites.

media_camera Village Roadshow boss Graham Burke has called illegal downloaders “leeches” and “thieves” in a speech on the Gold Coast. Picture: Supplied

media_camera Australia is a world-leader in piracy, with 12.5 per cent of the illegal downloads of the first episode of Season 6 of Game of Thrones coming from Down Under. Picture: HBO

Australia remains one of the worst offending countries for online piracy, with 1.24 billion visits to illegal pirate sites last year. Australia also accounted for 12.5% of the global torrents of the Season 6 premiere episode of Game Of Thrones, well ahead of the US on 8.5 per cent. And although the introduction of streaming services such as Presto, Stand and Netflix saw a reduction in piracy numbers as new content became more readily available legally, a worrying trend has emerged among younger people, with 31 per cent of 12-17 year olds pirating movies, almost twice as many as the previous year.

Mr Burke said that early education was the best hope for the future, with bodies such as Creative Content Australia working with key industry players to drive home the message that piracy is theft and has social and economic consequences.

“We are working in schools, providing a range of teaching resources that stimulate discussion about copyright and raise awareness about the impact of piracy on the creative industries,” he said in his speech to cinema exhibitors.

“These resources are downloaded by thousands of teachers annually. We are also developing a broadly based campaign that will warn people of the danger of viruses and malware and reinforce the message that piracy is theft. We will rely as always on the support of all the exhibitors here to play this in your cinemas. And we’ve got terrific commitments of support from Nine, Seven, Ten and Foxtel.”

Originally published as ‘If we don’t solve this — it’s over’