Game of Thrones. If you're in Australia are you downloading it, or did you sign up to a pricey pay-TV package just for the occasion?



I've found a way that is the best I can do in meeting my moral standards when it comes to copyright and intellectual property. It's not Bittorrent, any other kind of download or a bootlegged DVD. I'm paying for it, and an official Game of Thrones TV network somewhere in the world still gets its cut – and as a result so do the producers, the actors and everyone else on the creative side.

It's still not completely legit but I went down this route because I love the show, having caught the bug from my better half. If I were to watch Game of Thrones officially, my only choice would be to sign up with the dominant pay-TV provider, Foxtel, after the previously available route of buying each new episode via iTunes was shut off.



Keen to watch the latest season, not wanting to have to ride out all the spoilers, but reluctant to download it completely illegally, I found an overseas provider that offers a more flexible model – much cheaper than what Foxtel is selling. I can pay as I go and when the season's over I am not tied in to a costly pay-TV package.



I would have been willing to pay Foxtel to receive Game of Thrones on pay-per-view or a month-by-month subscription basis, but it is generally only available as part of a channel package for full subscribers who have a Foxtel or Telstra box in their homes. There's a web-based Foxtel offering that doesn't come with a contract, but even going month by month it's too expensive for just one programme – and far more costly than what I'm sourcing from overseas. And fundamentally, I'm just not interested in all the other crap on Foxtel that I'd be subsidising under their arrangement. Game of Thrones is the only gap in my otherwise free-to-air viewing diet.



If I couldn't do things the way I am, would I torrent Game of Thrones? Well, I've torrented content in the past and might do so again. I've usually felt grubby about it, unless I could rationalise it by saying it was a show from free-to-air that I happened to have missed, or forgotten to record, or where I had paid a motza at the cinema to see it on first release.



But my point is, I do have a moral compass when it comes to this. I do think about whether it's right or wrong to download something and if a programme is worth watching but not available free-to-air, I am willing to pay on a one-off basis. So do many others, I'm sure. Foxtel could be making a buck out of people like us by going that bit further – being a little bit more flexible, instead of trying to rope us into either an overpriced short-term package or costly long-term commitment. It's hard to believe that in 2014, a media company is still thinking that way.



I know what I'm doing is not completely legitimate. Yes, it involves some tricky software, some technical subterfuge. I'm still getting the show outside the official, licensed route in Australia, which is naughty. But my money is still going via a legitimate network and finding its way to the talented and creative people who make Game of Thrones.



On the values side of things that's what matters to me, and it's the crucial point in this debate. Exclusive network tie-ups for hit series are irrelevant in an age where the viewers just want to watch that one thing, right now. And the big networks like Foxtel don't seem to get that at all.