A United States movie studio says it is considering going to court to force Kiwi internet providers to hand over the identities of people it suspects of having pirated its films.

READ MORE: How will Aussie's pirates react?

The studio, Voltage Pictures, provoked a storm in Australia this week after persuading an Australian federal court to order several Australian internet providers to hand over the identities of 4700 of their account holders.

Is piracy ever justified? Share your stories, photos and videos. Contribute

They were people whose internet connections were allegedly used to share Voltage's blockbuster film Dallas Buyers Club.

The order opened the door to possible prosecutions of the individuals by the studio and large fines. Voltage Pictures has reportedly said it may also try to get the alleged pirates' internet accounts terminated.

Voltage Pictures vice-president Michael Wickstrom, who is in charge of collecting royalties for the company, said it was considering taking similar action in New Zealand.

"Voltage is actively pursuing piracy in Britain, Singapore, Canada, the US and Germany," he said. "Piracy affects all countries and all worldwide distributors."

Piracy usually takes places through file-sharing services, such as BitTorrent, which are located around the world. Movie studios are able to track pirates as far as internet providers – but no further – by monitoring the internet protocol addresses of computers from which files are shared.

Wickstrom said Voltage had yet to get a handle on how widely its movies had been pirated in New Zealand. "But we may be working on that shortly," he said.

The company's goal was to "just stop piracy with whatever means necessary", he said. "Piracy is theft and it is just plain wrong. When the royalties are not coming in due to piracy then the producers, actors, crew members and distributors don't get paid," he said.

InternetNZ had earlier speculated Voltage's crackdown on movie piracy was unlikely to happen in New Zealand because studios had a less nuclear option available to them.

Chief executive Jordan Carter said the "furore" over the court ruling in Australia showed New Zealand had been right to develop an alternative "three strikes" fast-tracked justice system which better protected people's privacy and could keep enforcement action out of the courts.

The three-strikes regime, colloquially dubbed "Skynet", lets rights holders bring pirates before the Copyright Tribunal after three infringements and seek awards of up to $15,000.

But New Zealand Screen Association managing director Matthew Cheetham said movie studios had decided not to embrace the three-strikes regime. That was because of the cost of sending out large numbers infringement notices to catch a small number of perpetrators, he said.

Cheetham said he was "genuinely unsure" whether movie studios could repeat the Australian action here, adding he was not aware of any such moves under way among the studios he represented.

Many Australians and New Zealanders justify piracy on the basis that movies and television programmes are often more expensive outside major markets such as the US and are often only broadcast here long after their initial release, if at all.