I love to pirate. I’m not really ashamed of it either. I believe that there’s not much wrong with a bit of illegal downloading, especially in this country of horrendous prices and excruciating wait times.

I am a television addict. I watch so many programs that I have to use a specialised website to know when my favourite shows are going to be airing. I watch NBC shows, ABC Family shows, HBO and BBC programs. I watch American, British and occasionally other European television. I don’t know how I would access these shows without the help of a torrent, or at least a livestream.

I pirate because I can’t access my favourite television any other way, unless I buy a Foxtel subscription (with no guarantee that the shows I watch will be aired on any of their channels) or wait months, years or forever for the shows to play on free-to-air. This is why I don’t view my torrenting as a problem. If I was stealing something that I could easily actually pay for, it would be an issue.

What the suits at Foxtel need to realise is that nobody wants to pay $80 a month for a bunch of channels they’re not interested in. They don’t want to pay extra for an ‘entertainment package’ or the movie channels. They don’t want to fork out so much money when the service does not even offer them the freedom of streaming on demand. And Foxtel doesn’t really broadcast the vast range of television shows that Australian consumers are asking for.

The Australian government now seems to be in the pocket of Foxtel and network executives. They want ISPs to be responsible for consumer actions. In a nutshell, they have a broken and outdated business model, and instead of fixing it, they’re asking other businesses to change their working model.

To me, it seems that the most logical solution is for Australian consumers to have access to an affordable and reliable streaming service, such as NetFlix. Such a service could host a diverse range of programs, and could stamp out a lot of piracy. People could watch what they want, when they want, and they would be paying for it.

But that’s the thing. In the US, Netflix costs just $8.99. That is $71 cheaper than Foxtel. If such a streaming service were to work on Australia, it would need to be kept cheap. If consumers are going to pay for something they can get for free, it needs to be cheap. We are willing to pay for the ease of access and instant satisfaction Netflix offers, but only to a certain price.

A few of my friends already have access to Netflix, which is technically illegal. They have used and paid for proxies in order to access Netflix as if from the US. They then pay $8.99 for a Netflix subscription. They are trying to do the right thing. They are paying for this service, and apparently that’s not allowed. To me, that is ridiculous.

If piracy is made harder in Australia, I will be angry. I will be disappointed and I will probably find a way to keep torrenting.

But maybe the Australian government, maybe Foxtel, and maybe Netflix will listen to the Australian people, and maybe they will give us an affordable way to pay for the content we love. If not, we’ll just keep loving it illegally.