About 80 per cent of Australian online pirates would not be encouraged to stop infringing even if they received a letter from their ISP saying their account would be suspended or internet speeds slowed, a government commissioned survey shows.

Between March and May this year, both the Australian and British governments conducted surveys to measure online copyright infringement across different content types, with the Australian research closely modelled on Britain's approach.

The Australian survey — commissioned by Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull's Department of Communications and undertaken by Taylor Nelson

Sofres​ (TNS) Australia — involved interviews with 2630 individuals and found that approximately 20 per cent of Australians would be impacted by the threat of receiving a letter from their ISP (80 per cent would not).


Further, it found that only 21 per cent would be encouraged to stop infringing if they received a letter saying their account would be suspended, 17 per cent if the letter indicated their account had been used to infringe, and 17 per cent if the letter said their internet speed would be restricted. Meanwhile, only 5 per cent of respondents said nothing would make them stop pirating.

The top three things that would encourage Aussies to stop? If legal services were cheaper (39 per cent), if everything Australians wanted was available legally (38 per cent), and if everything they wanted was available legally online as soon as it was released elsewhere (36 per cent). These are views both Labor's Ed Husic and the Australian Greens' Scott Ludlam have been expressing, as well as consumers groups such as CHOICE.

John Stanton, chief executive of the Communications Alliance, which represents Australian ISPs, said the survey pointed to the need for heightened efforts by rights holders to make legal online content available to Australian internet users in a timely and affordable way, as part of an integrated strategy to minimise online infringement.

Mr Stanton pointed to the upcoming copyright notice scheme code (which does not includes sanctions such as suspension of consumers' accounts) as one way to curb piracy in Australia.

The code has been submitted it to the communications regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, for approval and is due to be in place by September.

Anti-piracy, website blocking legislation also recently came into force and it's expected rights holders will soon make use of it to request judges order ISPs to block certain sites, such as The Pirate Bay and KickAssTorrents.

I think it'd be nice if more stuff is available here in Australia, because that's why I and many other Aussies download, because we can't get what a lot of other people can.

Originally Posted by Lefizziy

I think it'd be nice if more stuff is available here in Australia, because that's why I and many other Aussies download, because we can't get what a lot of other people can.

Exactly, and even when they provide legitimate services to Australia like Netflix, it's a drastically watered down version.