AUSTRALIANS PIRATING CONTENT THEY CAN ALREADY GET FREE

Online piracy is so rampant in Australia that even people who can download movies and television shows via legal channels often do so via pirate sites, Robert Thompson, CEO of the “new” News Corp told a media conference in New York on Tuesday. News Corp is 50-percent owner and operator of the FoxTel cable and satellite service in Australia, which offers a suite of movie channels and U.S. television shows to subscribers. “Piracy in Australia is at an extraordinary level,” he said. “Sixteen per cent — that’s one six — of all illegal downloads of Breaking Bad [worldwide] are in Australia. There aren’t that many people in Australia,” he quipped. He also noted that while FoxTel had the rights to carry Netflix’s Game of Thrones in Australia, 20 percent of its subscribers preferred to download it illegally anyway. “People are just in the habit of illegal downloads,” he said. “Australians have very bad habits — piracy happens to be one of them.” Thompson is an Australian.