Is filesharing the way forward for Australian filmmakers? Screen Australia, through its multi-platform drama fund, is funding Airlock – a science-fiction series of three, 30-minute episodes, to be distributed freely over peer-to-peer networks for audiences to share, burn and copy to their heart’s desire.

In an age of geo-blocking, copyright lawsuits and internet censorship, handing $350,000 to pro-pirate filmmakers creates alarm among those who believe cinema is dying, and digital theft is to blame.

Whether Screen Australia should be directly funding content that uses torrent networks is a contentious question. On the one hand, these are the same peer-to-peer networks that Village Cinemas claim cost the Australian film industry $230m a year in lost sales. On the other, they are so ubiquitous that more than a quarter of Australians currently use them for illegal filesharing. It’s becoming the wholehearted norm.

Airlock’s producer, Enzo Tedeschi, says Screen Australia’s decision is indicative of an acceptance that pirating is the new status quo, and that filesharing can be used as a powerful distribution method.

“It’s in part a recognition of the fact that there is a very large audience on certain parts of the internet for a certain kind of content and there’s a legitimate way for filmmakers to take advantage of that,” says Tedeschi, who is also using crowdfunding to ensure an active fanbase that will, in effect, pay for the series in advance.

“Ignoring piracy is not going to make it go away. We’ve convinced Screen Australia that our audience is on pirate networks, and we’ve got a system by which to distribute the film and find our audience there.”

This logic stands in total opposition to those pre-movie advertisements we’re all familiar with, the ones with the grungy music, graffiti-like slogans and blaring sirens: “You wouldn’t steal a car, you wouldn't steal a handbag, you wouldn't steal a movie … piracy, it’s a crime.” Here piracy could be the start of a new business model that monetises one of the most effective, fast and available distribution technologies: BitTorrent.

It may seem counterintuitive, but the producers of Airlock see their free, peer-to-peer distribution tactic as a path to turning a profit. “There will be other avenues where you’ll be able to buy the film that will be monetised,” says Tedeschi. The BitTorrent version of the series, he argues, will merely be a free advertisement for these paid avenues.

Though Airlock is a series of 30-minute episodes, Tedeschi’s production team Distracted Media applied this same distribution approach to their first feature film, The Tunnel. It makes more sense than “trying to go out theatrically first which is your biggest risk and biggest expense and you can’t be certain there’s an audience for it”, says Tedeschi. “We’re working backwards: feeding it out early and getting audience attention early.”

The production team will then sell the series to other platforms and distributors once they’ve proved there’s a market out there for it. Although nothing’s yet locked in, they sold their first feature film, The Tunnel, to DVD retailers and online streaming channels after its free BitTorrent launch, as well as doing special event screenings at cinemas.

It’s turning the usual business model, by which films are released at theatres first, before spreading out to other arenas, on its head. “It doesn’t sound like a strategy,” admits Tedeschi, “but there’s value in being visible.”

Federally funding filesharing may be a first for Australia, but there are overseas precedents. Canada’s public broadcaster, CBC, offered the program Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister to audiences via BitTorrent in 2008 without copyright protection. Norway’s NRK and the Netherlands’ VPRO have also experimented with BitTorrent broadcasting, using Creative Commons licences and content for which they own the rights. And back in Australia, the South Australian Film Corporation has just funded an apocalyptic miniseries called Wastelander Panda that will broadcast free on YouTube.

Perhaps torrenting isn’t so different from free-to-air television? This is not torrenting as “piracy”, this is torrenting as a supported distribution channel, authorised by broadcasters and filmmakers.

What about the ethics? In giving away content free on peer-to-peer networks, do we risk devaluing media products altogether and sanctioning illegal downloading? The argument is that pirates become used to the idea that film and television content should be free, and are less likely to pay creative producers for their work by buying a DVD or a movie ticket in the future.

“It’s certainly not an argument to be completely discarded; it merits discussion,” says Tedeschi. “But I would also ask, is there any more value in an indie filmmaker taking a whole lot of finance then handing their film over to a distributor, who doesn’t distribute the film well, which nobody sees? Does that give any more value to a product? Films like Patrick – has that film been helped by everyone knowing it bombed at the box office? Or has that brand been harmed?”

Indeed, the viability of filesharing as a fully fledged business model is only just being tested. It’s too hard to tell who the real winners and losers will be, and what new and self-sustaining systems might arise. But the fact that filmmakers are willing to try, and that funding agencies are willing to support them, shows there’s value in thinking creatively about getting films out there.