Graham Burke is a man on a mission to end piracy in Australia

IF you spent the weekend illegally downloading the latest blockbusters, you had better watch out because Australia’s very own piracy crusader is gunning for you.Graham Burke is on a mission to take down pirates and you could be next.

But who exactly is Mr Burke?

On one hand he is the freshly appointed chairman of Creative Content Australia — an organisation attempting to educate those illegally downloading about online piracy.On the other hand, he is the co-chief executive of Village Roadshow — a leading Australian co-producer and co-financier of major Hollywood motion pictures including Mad Max: Fury Road and San Andreas.

While speaking in his position for the former, Mr Burke said the primary role of Creative Content Australia is to enlighten and educate internet users about piracy.

“Some people have not considered that piracy is just plain wrong but when they understand it is not a victimless crime and other people will lose their jobs, they stop,” .

“Additionally, these people are not aware they are part of a criminal underbelly with sites that carry advertising for gambling with no age limit, party drugs, hard-core pornography and prostitution, as well as exposing themselves to nasty viruses.”

While this approach may seem friendly, his position with Village Roadshow sees him taking a much firmer stance on the issue.

Mr Burke said his company had been actively monitoring internet users sharing Village Roadshow content via peer-to-peer networks and suggested a repeat of the Dallas Buyers Club legal case could be in the works.

“It’s something we’re having a closer look at,” he toldCrikey.

Such a move would come as a surprise given the failure of theDallas Buyers Club case due to the high costs involved, but Mr Burke suggested his company would have a vastly different approach.

“If we were to pursue it, we’d be doing it on the basis of a fair and reasonable approach.”

The threat of prosecution is a huge shift from comments Mr Burke made in 2014 when addressing then-Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s call for movie studios to sue those who illegally download.

“We don’t want to sue 16-year-olds or mums and dads,” he told the Australian Financial Review.

“It takes 18 months to go through the courts and all that does is make lawyers rich and clog the court system. It’s not effective.”
Maybe he knows something we don’t?

The threat of legal action might be enough to scare some members of the public off illegal downloading, but Melbourne-based entertainment lawyer Shaun Miller doesn’t think it will be overly successful.

“Given the limited resources of Australian law-enforcing authorities, it would be impractical to deem millions of Australians who illegally download or stream content to be law-breaking citizens and bring legal action against each person,” he told news.com.au.

“It’s an ever-evolving landscape which is all driven by consumers wanting to access film and TV content as widely, quickly and cheaply as possible.”
While Mr Burke wouldn’t confirm when his court case would be brought against the Australian public, he is actively progressing with legal action against

Piracy site SolarMovie, which claims to offer 51,236 movies and 5793 TV shows “absolutely for free”.

The proceedings, due in federal court this week, will see Village Roadshow calling for ISPs to take down or block access to piracy websites, including SolarMovie.

If successful, the case will be instrumental in slowing down the stem of online piracy in Australia, although Mr Burke admits it’s not a long term fix.

“We’re not going to win this war against these criminals unless we work on three fronts: legislation, communication, and availability and price,” he told Crikey.