Over the past few years I've sat through revelations like this countless times. I've heard people talking about downloading in Dubbo and Adelaide. I've heard them talking in Cabramatta and Castle Hill and many places in between. The point is, people are talking openly about this behaviour without hesitation. The morality of what they're doing and any possible consequences aren't just low on the agenda, they're irrelevant to downloaders.

Not only has downloading content illegally become socially acceptable in mainstream Australia, there's a sense of status associated with the practice, as if only the dimmest or the most self-disciplined or pretentiously principled among us would actually wait months for a series to become available for legal download (c'mon!) and then actually pay for it (yeah, right!) when you can get it right here, right now – for free (that's more like it!).

And once you've had a taste of the ease and speed with which one can download content illegally, there's no looking back. "Once I learnt how to download, that was it. I used to love going to the video shop, but now that's it," Brad* said.

Waiting for anything runs counter to the "culture of now" – the modus operandi of the digital age – which is why movie companies and TV networks will never win this war. They are fighting a social revolution and unless they adapt to the "culture of now" and find a way to provide international content exactly when people want it (and cheaply), the power of this tidal wave will continue to crush them.

Once a behaviour becomes normalised, there's little anyone or any organisation can do to change it - short of throwing the people practicing that behaviour in jail or slapping them with a massive, enforceable fine. And even that isn't exactly feasible in practice.