Asia IP

In Australia, as shown by the recent record breaking piracy downloads of four leaked episodes from the ifth season of Game of Thrones – igures estimate around 32 million people globally downloaded the pirated episodes – internet piracy remains a huge problem.

Lawyers at Gilbert + Tobin,say that the Australian government has taken measures aimed at reducing online copyright infringement in Australia as part of the country’s international obligation to provide protection for copyrighted material. This is the irst systemic response in over a decade.

Vanessa Farago-Diener, a lawyer at Gilbert + Tobin in Sydney, says the current situation of online piracy in the country has not improved. “What is happening is that there is a shift, like many aspects of content delivery over the internet, away from simple unlicensed downloads to use of unlicensed streaming services and specialized apps for obtaining access to unauthorized copies of copyright content,” she says, adding that illegal downloading of material has become normalized in the community, particularly with younger generations who consider that they have an entitlement to access material by whatever means available more than ever before.

She says that there are signs that this is likely to change with three signiicant developments in Australia: the ISP code, the Dallas Buyers Club decision and the no-fault site-blocking law likely to come into effect this year.

Farago-Diener says that apart from TV industry, the music industry is also being damaged by piracy. In many ways, that industry is even more vulnerable to piracy today given the small ile sizes that can be rapidly accessed over the internet. But there are many other content-based industries currently facing the challenges of the traditional entertainment industry. “These include the book publishing sector, which is just seeing the impact of unlicensed digital books starting to erode the market for e-books, software and games piracy and even educational material,” she says.

Recent measures taken by the Australian Government are aimed at reducing online copyright infringement in Australia, including one that requires industry rights holders, internet service providers (ISPs) and consumer groups to jointly-develop an industry code aimed at changing consumers’ behaviour in downloading infringing material and instead steer them towards lawful sources of content and the introduction of the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015.

“There is no one single issue that has led to the rise of internet piracy in Australia, although there are certainly drivers that were essential. The technology to do it without substantial enforcement action has played a large part. Access without risk of prosecution has left users to continue unrestricted.” Farago-Diener says this is likely to change with the successful Dallas Buyers Club action that ended with the ISPs being required to hand over details about their customers which had downloaded the movie.

She says that an unhealthy culture is in Australia of trying to justify and rationalize the behaviour – encouraged by sections of the technology and media – that have had a big impact on piracy rates. With the government making clear that this will not continue, legislative reforms and cases such as Dallas Buyers Club, and an increased educational campaign to steer users to legitimate content, there is every reason for expecting the drivers of piracy to start to diminish.

However, she expects the measures will be effective, as there are a set of measures aimed at different parts of the problem. “The internet code will provide a form of notice and take down scheme found in many countries around the world. They have proved to be effective, particularly in the US where the Copyright Alert System operates along similar lines as an industry-agreed code. The site-blocking law that is likely to come into operation in Australia this year is equivalent to the same laws operating successfully in Europe and the United Kingdom. Together, the two measures being taken will serve to educate Australian consumers that downloading of content from pirated websites is illegal and is taken seriously by the Australian government,” she says.

“The Dallas Buyers Club case result is also likely to cause infringing users to think twice about continuing, as they may be caught up in civil action against them. Given that this form of action is open to any copyright owners and can take place after the last step of the industry code, the implications are likely to be significant.”