Yarr! Just make it easy to watch.

The Age have today reported that the “Australian film and television industry” has launched a major legal action against one of Australian ISP iiNet for allegedly allowing its users to download pirated movies and TV shows.

And by the “Australian film industry”, The Age mean Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Disney and the Seven Network.

iinets Chief Operating Officer Mark White has stated that iiNet do not support piracy, but can’t just disconnect people because the film industry are claiming that piracy is taking place.

Primarily, it seems that this lawsuit is targeting illegal film distribution. However, the involvement of Channel Seven suggests that there is a component of concern about online TV distribution.

Now, it should be stated that Televised Revolution does not condone piracy at all. Heck, if there is a legal alternative, that should be encouraged by all means. It’s shameful, for example, that The Colbert Report and The Daily Show are shared on Bittorrent so heavily when Comedy Central have set up high bandwidth websites for viewers to stream episodes. That said, if there are no alternatives in place, viewers should feel entitled to find their own distribution method.

Quite simply, if television broadcasters are going to set up an industry whereby broadcast TV is available free to the public (albeit ad-supported), viewers are going to feel that sense of entitlement. Add to this the anger that many viewers feel towards networks repeatedly pulling TV shows after just a handful of episodes have aired. It’s difficult for a viewer to develop any trust in networks to actually run a full series that they commence screening.

It has always struck Televised Revolution as odd that a TV network is willing to do so much that irritates their consumers. Surely that just destroys any notion of brand loyalty. But, I digress.

Piracy really causes more problems than its worth. The quality of product suffers, profits are down as a result meaning folks don’t get paid for something they’ve produced, and distribution of the product is forced underground – serving as a challenge for the audience seeking content.

Clearly the studios have a product that consumers are seeking. Why not work to the strengths of the situation and find a distribution method that works in this new digital age? Rather than threaten legal action, couldn’t that energy be better spent?

The industry have already made big inroads with the launch of services in the US like Hulu. The only barrier preventing a site like Hulu from dominating the AV desires of the global viewing audience is international content deals with organizations like Channel 7. Perhaps it is simply time to cut loose the bottom-feeder international market and take the product straight to the consumer?