Game of Thrones downloading angers Murdoch

Apparently Australia had the highest download rate in the world, or something akin to that, last week when it seemed simply everyone download the first in the new series of Game of Thrones, which plays on the pay TV here Foxtel. Owned by Murdoch. Of course all these free torrent downloads have really fuckin pissed off Murdoch as normally the only way you could see the show here in Australia was through his Foxtel pay TV. That's until everyone started picking up on torrents and how they work. Murdoch even went so far as to compare watching it for free online with stealing a Ferrari. Que sympathetic violin music.

For a start Foxtel is incredibly expensive in Australia. You can easily sign up for a package that costs over $100 a month if you're not careful. That's more than my landline and unlimited info internet combined. Murdoch seems to be living in last century, where he thinks he can lock up his shows like the old days. Instead he should be making it available to download online for a bloody reasonable price. It's one show. Why would anyone want to buy a $100 or so a month pay TV package to watch one show? News flash! Think about the customer and what they want.

Just how "illegal" is it to download a show and watch it privately in your own home anyway? It's all peer to peer sharing, which technically I don't think is illegal. Remember years back here in Australia everyone was downloading music for free through peer to peer sharing websites. Many people gave that up with new sites that sprouted up offering genuine and high quality recordings at a very reasonable price. Suddenly I could buy a song for $2-3. Why fuck around on those peer to peer sites then? Much faster to go straight to a site, buy it for next to nothing, and get the genuine song.

The new peer to peer TV show sites seem to be much better set up than the old music ones, but it's the same thing as what they were doing with music in years gone by. Why not just make the show available for a reasonable price to download online?  

No wonder piracy is so rife in Australia. Purchasing content legally is often far less convenient than downloading illegally over the internet. Moreover, the cost of copyrighted content in Australia is usually far more expensive than elsewhere. For example, a subscription to streaming service Netflix in the USA costs only $8 per month versus $35 (increasing to $50) per month for Foxtel’s sub-standard offering. 

And the issue of Australians being ripped-off extends well beyond television. For example, a parliamentary report, At what cost? published in July 2013, found that, on average, eBooks are 16% more expensive, music costs 52% more, and games are 82% more expensive in Australia. 

Indeed, its the extreme geo-blocking and protection that surrounds much international content distributed through Australian cable television that is driving consumers to seek alternative sources, albeit illegally. 

The key to reducing piracy is to free-up the market for content, so that purchasing it legally is as convenient as illegally downloading from the internet. This requires an end to exclusive deals and the ability to purchase content in a variety of formats from a variety of locations, as well as making it legal to convert files as one sees fit for private use. more