Here's a good quote :-
“Australians illegally download more tV shows and movies than any other country in the world,” said Storrier in the statement, noting much of the problem came from the fact that the content simply wasn’t legally available online Down Under — “This is an accessibility issue”.
“When you consider the availability of video entertainment content in overseas markets, we’re practically a content wasteland Down Under,” Storrier added. “A couple of recent launches of IPTV services hardly fill the existing void.”
http://delimiter.com.au/2010/06/15/a...emand-service/
Same thing applies.
But you can look at it like this :-
Northern Hemisphere ereading thing taking off.
Southern Hemisphere given examples in other media will always have a much smaller fraction of the work available to buy.
Plus, more Northern Hemisphere people with access, more of them will upload stuff their own companies produce. Most of the major publishing types of course having rump offshoots here.
So, again we won't be able to buy it - but will be able to get it for free. Good for the balance of trade?
Flipside of that is that they won't sell Australian work to the rest of the world, despite no contracts existing for most others in other regions. Either scared it will lower paper sales, or hoping for big strike lottery rights trading?
With the book thing - if they do try and keep prices as double or triple it is quite likely they will be publicly lambasted by both the left and the right.
Pretty sure I even saw Garth Nix write the other day 'we need to have reasonable and competitive prices' (can't remember where at the moment). He being one of the spokesmodels for the protectionists here recently. So even people in that camp changing their tune.
So, Australians (and our kiwi neighbours), despite being able to afford it if reasonably comparably priced are going to benefit from the ever-increasing availability of free stuff they can't pay for even if they want to. Doesn't look like it will change any time soon.
Good that we get something back for subsidising their telecommunications, anyway.