A whole bunch of online piracy sites and platforms are about to be hit with Australia‘s internet filter after the Federal Court handed down a judgement in favour of a bunch of local and international film studios and Foxtel.
59 sites are falling behind the iron curtain after Justice John Nicholas ordered Aussie ISPs to block access in two separate cases – one from Village Roadshow backed by Hollywood studios, and one by Foxtel.
The sites, according to Fairfax, include KissCartoon, Putlocker, GoMovies, EYNY, Kinogo and Prime Wire. Those bloody reputable platforms which definitely aren’t loaded to the brim with spyware, down the drain forever (unless you have invested some pocket change in a VPN).
The orders in both cases are likely to affect up to 150 domains. Fairfax quotes Village Roadshow boss Graham Burke, who seems reasonably chuffed about all of this:
Graham Burke, the co-chief executive of Village Roadshow, said it was a “great day for Australia” and pirate sites “employ nobody and create nothing”.
If film piracy “goes to its logical extension … Australia would be a country that wouldn’t have Lion, it wouldn’t have Red Dog“, he said.
Mr Burke said there was “no reason to pirate anymore because movies are now available in a timely fashion and the price is … as cheap or similar” to America and the United Kingdom.
Of course, it’s important to remember that Burke’s final comment there is not entirely accurate. Lego Batman – a film distributed by Village Roadshow – was released in Australia a full 48 days after its international release. The ostensible reasoning was to have it come out in time for school holidays, but boneheaded marketing decisions like that allow piracy to thrive as much as anything else.
And look, we could bring up the myriad ways Foxtel’s attempts to make streaming Game of Thrones work have fallen to bits, too. But you already know about that.
Time and time again its proven that Australians absolutely will pay for content if its costed reasonably and available same day as its international release. The advent of good streaming options has done far, far more to cut down on piracy than easily avoided ISP blocks.
But there it is, anyway. 59 more sites – gawn.
