You wouldn't steal a car... but a movie? Most of us seem fine with that.
As we look down the barrel of a copyright crackdown, with cabinet meeting about several legislative changes on Tuesday, many might be unaware of the fact that it isn't actually a crime to download movies and TV shows without permission or payment in Australia.
Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman in Doctor Who, which is freely available and delivered at the same time globally, but still 13,000 Australians tried to access before its release.
Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman in Doctor Who, which is freely available and delivered at the same time globally, but still 13,000 Australians tried to access before its release.
It may not be ethical and downloaders might be sued for copyright infringement, but there are no laws that criminalise Australians downloading and watching content for their own individual use.
"It's not illegal," Electronic Frontiers Alliance executive officer Jon Lawrence told Fairfax Media.
"Downloading something like Game of Thrones without paying for it is a breach of copyright but if you're not doing it on a commercial scale, it's simply a civil issue and it's the copyright owner's problem if they want to come after you."
Words such as "stolen" and "theft" are often bandied about in movie torrenting conversations. At the Village Roadshow annual general meeting in August this year, chairman Robert Kirby labelled it exactly that.
"Plain and simple, it is theft. No one would go into a bookstore and walk out with books under their arm. The Australian government has indicated strong support for introducing legislation, which we anticipate will be in the next few months," Mr Kirby said.
While few would celebrate depriving content creators of income, Mr Kirby's classification of downloading does not square with the legal definition of theft. This requires permanently depriving