Australia's love affair with piracy may have inadvertently scored us a better deal on Netflix pricing, judging by comments from its chief financial officer, David Wells.

In a call to investors, Mr Wells said the company reduced the price of subscriptions to its video streaming service in countries with a high prevalence of piracy in order to stay competitive.

Stuart McAuliffe: "Pirates are very mobile and very flexible in decision-making."

"Piracy is a governor in terms of our price in high piracy markets outside the US," Mr Wells said.

"We wouldn't want to come out with a high price because [if] there's a lot of piracy … we have to compete with that."