Most media pirates I've met – and I include myself in this – employ the same old arguments to justify their actions.

One of the best is that traditional media corporations aren't keeping up with the pace of technological change.

"If they had the content in the form I wanted it, when I wanted it, then I would pay," goes the logic.

This argument is employed at an early age.

A few weeks ago I met with a class of students who were learning about programming, copyright, and piracy.

Most told me they would never dream of downloading music, movies or television, but they did have "a friend" who generously shared what he had.

Later, when I was speaking to a few of the kids away from their teacher, they admitted that yes, they were rampant downloaders.

Partly, the boys were teenagers, and unable to afford as much media as they would like to consume.

I've been there. But the boys also enjoyed cleverly beating a system, and were excited as they described the scams they were running. Most didn't require any sort of hacking know-how, just knowledge of the way a system operates and a nose for the easiest way around those rules.

Based on their resourcefulness, these kids will probably end up in finance and will be out-earning me within five years.

At the end of the discussion, most said they would pay, if the content providers could give them the goods easily and cheaply.

Now, thanks to the launch of two media delivery services, they might be able to put their money where their mouth is.

For music, a service named Rdio launched recently.

Thanks to a nice man who works at the company and who gave me a free trial, I've been putting it through its paces.

Rdio streams music to your computer or mobile device. You create an account, search for music to listen to, add it to your "collection", and away you go.

There's also a social aspect, as you can follow other users to see what they are listening to. Anything you like the look of can be easily added to your collection.

It's relatively easy to accumulate a sizeable collection of music in a matter of hours, and because the music can be streamed through a browser window, your collection is available anywhere.

You can download the music to the device you're using, so if you're going to listen to an album more than a couple of times, and you're the one who has to foot the bill, I recommend doing so.

Unfortunately, in a lot of cases the music I wanted was not yet available in New Zealand (although it did show up in iTunes), which is frustrating. The quality of the recording also differed. Maybe it's just me, but once I'd finished listening to an album, I still had the urge to downl... I mean, buy, the music.

For these reasons, this service will probably not become my primary source of music, but I do see the value.

Rather than lugging around every song I've ever enjoyed, I might choose to keep only the best, then rely on a service like this for the rest.

That's the music covered, but now that Australian service Quickflix has launched in New Zealand, movie and television fans may have their needs met also.

The service is pretty similar to American media streaming sensation Netflix, with customers paying a monthly fee to stream as many films and television shows as they like, and a pay-per-view fee for new release films.

The service currently works on computers, internet-enabled televisions and PlayStation 3s, but apps for mobile devices are on their way.

Most importantly for New Zealand internet users subject to punishing data limits, the service has made a deal with state-owned ISP Orcon to "zero rate" content played through Quickflix. Deals with other ISPs are coming, apparently.

This all sounds great, but what will make or break the service is the quality and quantity of the content on offer.

At the moment there are a few hundred films and exactly 10 television series, mainly British shows (Blackadder fans will be particularly well-catered to).

The launch announcement emphasised that the service would have new Doctor Who episodes, which is a little worrying.

No offence to fans of the Doctor, but it's hardly a sexy lead title like Mad Men and Game of Thrones.

Across the ditch the lineup is a little better, so presumably this will improve with time.

One thing's for sure, as more of these services make their presence felt here in New Zealand, pirates will need to find a new excuse.