Netflix's next challenge: piracy is back

Bear will launch on Disney+ next month, but the confusion is frustrating consumers: each major streaming service has only had a few really big hits. To access all of them, viewers have to pay almost $70 per month for basic access, without sports streaming like Kayo or special apps dedicated to certain genres, which can double that.

People like Melbourne man Will, who doesn’t want his last name used, told this masthead that he was forced to hijack one of his favorite shows because he didn’t want to subscribe to it anymore just to watch it. “I am watching [British police show] Task on Netflix, but last season wasn’t there,” Will said. “And I have COVID so of course I will download it [unlawfully].”

Due to the license agreement, Task Line season six is ​​only available on BritBox, another streaming service.

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While there are some pirates who never stop illegally downloading because they can or save money, Will is in a different category. Like many of his generation, Will and his friends used torrenting services, which allow people to share pirated files online, on a regular basis until around 2015. That was the year Netflix launched in Australia. But now he’s back on torrenting and thinking of canceling his Netflix account.

“I was like: ‘no [torrent search site] Pirate Bay is still around?’, how to download stuff?” Will said of his return to piracy. “And it sure is still around and it’s easier than figuring out what streaming service is playing.”

Other people talking to Sydney Morning Herald and Era for this story hijacking content through other means: websites hosting illegal streams, software that puts a Netflix-like interface on top of torrent downloads like Popcorn Time or a library of unlawful content on Plex media library software. For the most part it is more convenient than torrenting on its own, when users can easily find themselves with viruses as with new episodes Sopranos.

Survey research commissioned by the federal government showed at least 21 per cent of Australians reported watching at least some pirated films in 2018. That was 49 per cent in 2015 but by 2021 it had risen to 23 per cent. TV programming was similar, dropping from 33 percent to 18 percent and then rising to 20 percent last year, the latest data available. There was a change in methodology in 2019 but the broad trend suggests the rapid reduction in the number of piracy has ended. Then there’s the question of the pandemic, which is driving streaming growth but may also be contributing to piracy numbers. The long-term impact is uncertain.

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RMIT University Associate Professor Ramon Lobato said piracy rates were linked to income, along with other factors such as convenience. Data released in May by consultancy Gemba showed median monthly spend on streaming is up 7 percent this year, “reflecting rising prices across a number of services”. At the same time, the proportion of customers who leave within six months of signing up has increased by 18 percentage points, with price as the main reason.

“As cost of living pressures intensify in Australia, it’s likely that some consumers will become smarter about what they spend their money on, and may add or replace some of their streaming subscriptions with piracy,” Lobato said. “But there is no clear line between piracy and legal consumption; the two often coexist in Australian households.”

That helps explain how many services, especially smaller ones, are enjoying growth even though piracy is not declining. “Despite the impact of piracy for Foxtel along with Kayo Sports and Binge, our streaming service is growing rapidly, with Kayo subscribers up more than 30 percent and Binge up more than 90 percent in the previous year,” a spokesperson for the Foxtel group said. Netflix remains the dominant service, with about 60 percent of Gemba’s research respondents saying someone in their family paid for it, but the overall picture is market saturation. “Growth has stabilized,” the consultant concluded, with streaming penetration declining. Netflix revealed it had lost 200,000 subscribers globally earlier this year and is bracing for more.

A Netflix spokesperson said competition was always forcing it to step up. “We aim to be the only streaming service that everyone subscribes to because of the variety and quality of our titles,” the spokesperson said. Stan and Apple declined to comment. Disney, Amazon and Paramount were contacted for comment.

Amy Pettinger, general manager of industry-funded anti-piracy group Creative Content Australia, sees this differently. “More services means less piracy,” he said. The group’s survey data shows a continued decline in piracy since the introduction of the streaming service. However, unlike federal government surveys, these surveys ask users directly whether they have pirated content, rather than whether they have accessed the content in a way that might indicate piracy, raising questions about whether users suspect self-reporting.

Creative Content Australia argues that piracy undermines Australian productions such as 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road.Credit:AP

But Creative Content has identified an archetype of pirates who use a plethora of streaming services to justify their behavior.

“When we profiled the people who plow, the majority are university educated, they earn more than $90,000 a year, and they subscribe to three plus subscription services,” Pettinger said. “They are prolific consumers of content, so this brings us back to feeling they have some sort of right to piracy because they are already paying for the service.”

The industry sees no justification for piracy. He argues piracy destroys jobs, investments and spoils Australia’s big story on screen. Foxtel wants internet platforms to be forced to take more responsibility for the piracy they enable and Netflix says it has implemented anti-piracy measures.

Does plowing make Will feel guilty? “No, not really, they’re just big companies aren’t they,” he said.

Stan is owned by Nine Entertainment Co, which also owns this masthead.

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