You Can’t Legally Purchase Most Of Australia’s Most-Pirated Movies

In news that’s going to surprise very few of you, it turns out that – at the moment – 7 out of the 10 most pirated movies in Australia aren’t actually available for legal home purchase. I’ll give you a moment to pick your jaws up from the floor after that brainbuster.

One of the key arguments in the battle against content piracy in Australia has long been the fact that content takes a lot longer to become legally available in Australia than it does in America, or in other parts of the world. And it’s that forced, arbitrary waiting period – combined with inflated prices compared to other parts of the world – that remove perceived choice on the behalf of the consumer, and drives them to other means of acquiring and consuming content.
But what exactly is the extent of that lack of availability? A new website is compiling the ten most torrented movies in Australia, and comparing that list with their consumer availability. The results are pretty much what you’d expect.
The website – the cannily named CanIWatchIt.com.au – looks at the availability of films by searching the top legal providers of content in the country, including Netflix, which it claims as being the second most popular provider of digital content in Australia.

Their comparison states that of the top ten most pirated films in Australia – which are, in order: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Divergent, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, 22 Jump Street, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, The Expendables 3, Hercules, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Other Woman and Need For Speed – only 3 are available to home consumers via digital streaming or rental.
Whilst this is something of a damning statistic, it’s certainly not without its flaws. Namely, 5 of those films named are still currently in theatres – meaning there is a legal way of seeing the film in Australia and – with the exception of The Expendables 3 – people pirating those movies have been putting up with either CAM (ie filmed on a camcorder by someone sitting in a cinema) or Telesync (same thing but with a direct audio channel) copies of the film, which are sub-standard at best and represent a truer kind of piracy – if such a thing exists.
Still, it’s definitely an interesting statistical look at content availability within Australia; a factor that will always play a significant role in the prevalence of pirating content for as long as it is an issue that remains unaddressed.

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