Australia's reputation as the world's most profligate pirates of movies and trendy television shows may be at risk, with new research suggesting people are switching to streaming rather than stealing.
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A survey by consumer advocate Choice shows the arrival in Australia of streaming services like Netflix and Stan (partly owned by Fairfax Media) has resulted in a drop of about 25 per cent in the rate of piracy.
"The fact is the number of people regularly pirating in Australia has dropped by a quarter since Netflix launched," said Choice campaigns manager Erin Turner.
"As a nation we are keen to pay for legal content. Our research found the number of people using legal subscription and pay-per-view services has jumped from 46 per cent to 59 per cent in the last six months."
The survey of more than 1000 people was last conducted in November 2014. It was updated for 2015 in July.
In that time, the proportion of Australians pirating content at least once a month has fallen from 23 per cent to 17 per cent.
At the same time, the percentage of people who said they never watch pirated content increased, from 67 per cent to 70 per cent.
Presto, owned by Foxtel and Seven West Media, launched on January 15 this year. It was followed by the launch of Stan on Australia Day. Both were established to defend against the imminent arrival of US streaming powerhouse, Netflix, which joined the fray on March 31.
Ms Turner said the figures were "directly related to the launch of Netflix in Australia and the emergence of a local streaming industry, with players such as Stan and Presto competing for customers and offering consumers real alternatives to piracy".
KPMG chief economist Brendan Rynne said the analysis made "perfect sense".
He said the common sentiment before the introduction of Netflix was that people would happily pay if they could get "what I want, when I want it".
However, he said the services available in Australia at the time did not offer that kind of product.
Mr Rynne said the relatively new services were still experiencing growing pains and some content people expected through their services was still not available.
As this improved, the rate of piracy was likely to fall further.
Ms Turner said the offering was the key and other efforts to stop piracy, such as a highly debated internet filter to block pirating sites, were "useless".
"These policies won't work, because they do not address the reasons people pirate; they just prop up outdated business models," Ms Turner said.
"Unlawful downloading comes down to availability, timeliness and affordability."
