2016-02-18
Australian Greens Communications Spokesperson Senator Scott Ludlam has again called for rights holders to dedicate their resources to making content more readily available instead of launching yet another costly court proceeding.
“Village Roadshow and other rights holders have been too slow to adapt to changing viewer habits, and again appear to be fighting progress with litigation instead of innovation,” Senator Ludlam said.
“This attempt to block Australians’ access to SolarMovie will cost Village Roadshow tens of thousands of dollars, whether it is successful or not. If it is successful, it will cost an Australian user a couple of bucks a month for a VPN to circumvent the block.
“The huge take-up of Netflix and the growing popularity of home-grown services like Stan and Presto clearly indicate the appetite Australians have for reliable and legitimate avenues to access media.
“Instead of pouring money into the pursuit of downloaders and easily-defeated site blocking in the defence of a superseded business model, rights holders should be exploring new ways to give people simple and legal access to the material they want to watch,” Senator Ludlam concluded.