MOST people who illegally download movies, music and TV shows would pay for them if there was a cheap and legal service as convenient as file-sharing tools like BitTorrent.

That's the finding of the most comprehensive look yet at people who illegally download TV shows, movies and music in Australia, conducted by news.com.au and market research firm CoreData.

The survey canvassed the attitudes of more than 7000 people who admitted to streaming or downloading media from illegitimate sources in the past 12 months.

It found accessibility was as much or more of a motivator than money for those who illegally download media using services like BitTorrent.

More respondents said they turned to illegal downloads because they were convenient than because they were free, when it came to all three types of media covered by the survey — TV shows, movies and music.

And more than two-thirds said they would pay for downloads from a legitimate service that was just as convenient if it existed.

The hypothetical legitimate service was described as giving users access to TV shows, movies and music they wanted, when they wanted them, without ads or copy protection.

The survey also found:

TV shows are illegally downloaded more regularly, and by more people, than movies or music.

GEN Y is prepared to pay more for legal downloads of TV shows and movies than any other age group, while people between 31 and 50 are more likely to pay top dollar for music.

THE most popular prices for legal downloads chosen by respondents were $1 per TV show, $2 per movie and 50c per music track.



Click here to read the full results

Freedom of use

David Crafti, president of the Pirate Party Australia political group, said the survey results showed illegal downloaders were in fact frustrated consumers.

"People aren't just looking for a free ride. They're living in the modern world and expecting business models to keep up with them," he said.

Mr Crafti said restrictive copy protection measures that "crippled" many legal download stores — such as locking movie or music files so they can only be played on specific devices — turned users off buying media through legitimate channels.

"I think what it comes down to is freedom," he said.

"They just want to know that they've got the data, they can watch it whenever they want, on whatever device they want, they can watch it three months later, or a year later, and not have any time limitations."

If there was a legitimate online service that gave people the same freedoms offered by pirated media at a cheap price, Mr Crafti said many downloaders would switch to it.

"They'd be happy to be signed up to it, to be able to not have to search BitTorrent and have to figure out which bad quality version of it to get," he said.

"While some people would still not pay for it, there'd be enough people who would pay for it to create and maintain a very sustainable media industry."

Stealing from the rich

Neil Gane, the executive director of anti-piracy group Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, said there was a need for businesses to develop more flexible models — but they were being hampered by piracy.

"This is something that consumers obviously want, and it's something that legitimate businesses are striving for," he said.

"(But) I think industry and government have to address the current rampant infringement that's available online.

"Movie industries obviously want to make their content available online, but they can't compete currently with a free alternative that's perpetrated through theft.

"Once there is a level playing field, I think you'll begin to see a lot more flexible, innovative business models."

Mr Gane also questioned whether pirates would really be prepared to pay for legitimate downloads, or were simply saying they would in order to justify their behaviour.

"We've always seen a Robin Hood type of attitude towards movie piracy and certainly when it comes to downloading and illegal file-sharing in general that it's all about hurting the Tom Cruises of the world who are probably paid too much money in the first place, and it's essentially a victimless crime," he said.

"This type of Robin Hood attitude is often used to justify such behaviour that the majority know very well is illegal."

The price is wrong

Mr Gane also said some of the prices survey respondents said they were prepared to pay for legal downloads were unrealistic.

More than two-thirds of respondents in news.com.au's survey said they would be prepared to pay for movies through a convenient legal download service.

Almost half said they would pay $2 per movie, followed by 28 per cent who said they would pay $5 and a minority who would fork out a premium price of $10.

Mr Gane said the most popular price — $2 per episode — wasn't going to cut it for the film industry.

"The average (cost of a) Hollywood movie in 2008 to make and market was $108 million. So it's a very expensive business and it's a very risky business. To expect to be able to purchase a copy of that movie for $2 is a rather unrealistic ask," Mr Gane said.

The expectation of getting something for nothing, or close to nothing, was a by-product of the internet era and would have to change, Mr Gane said.

"There's almost a devaluation of quality content in the internet space and this devaluation has perhaps been one of the negative legacies of the digital age," he said.

"There is a cross-section of the online community who now mistakenly almost believe this warped maxim that if it's online it should be free."

The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft protects the copyright interests of the film and television industry in Australia and represents major studies including Village Roadshow, Disney, Paramount, Sony, Universal, Fox and Warner Bros.

Earlier this year the group lost a court case launched against internet service provider iiNet over the alleged copyright infringements of its customers.

Australia's Pirate Party is based on the Swedish group of the same name, which won about 7 per cent of votes in the country's 2009 election

The local group says it is focused on civil liberties and copyright law reform and plans to contest the next federal election.

According to the most recent statistics from 2006, film piracy costs the movie industry in Australia about $230 million a year, with internet pirates blamed for up to $92 million of that.

Mr Gane said that figure would only have risen in recent years as broadband speeds in Australia increased.