A new survey by Essential Research has been conducted on Australians and our filthy downloading habits. The results, which I am surprised haven't been grabbed by the anti-piracy lobby and waved from the nearest mountain top, show that if given cheap and equal access to content 20% of respondents who currently pirate would still continue to download copyright infringing content.
Just think about that for a moment. Look past the attention grabbing headline of the source story and consider that from the sample group 80% would consider using cheaper paid services if they were available. That is impressive and certainly shows quite a shift from what has long been assumed as the norm.
There is no way to guarantee 0% piracy. Even in the USA, home of Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go and a plethora of inexpensive cable TV channels and streaming services there still exists a contingent of dedicated downloaders who will NEVER pay for content. And if they were never going to pay then there is no lost sale because of them.
Another interesting little snippet in the survey is one sentence stating "Downloading from the internet has dropped somewhat since it was last measured in May 2012". A sizeable chunk of this would be because music and games now have the sort of services that can compete with piracy with convenience. iTunes started it all when the music industry was bemoaning lost sales due to services like Napster and Kazaa. Services like Rdio and Spotify now offer millions of songs on demand through free, advertising supported, models. Steam has revolutionised how PC games are sold and helped push acceptance of purchasing of digital content through other services such as Xbox Live and the Playstation Network.
All this has evolved after someone stood up and decided to change the status quo, who decided to provide something to the consumer that offers convenience. If the movie and TV rights holders expect people to stop downloading illicitly then they need someone to step up and provide the services, and then support it!
If you build it, they will come. Just don't expect everyone.
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