Government to censor the Internet

[theshape]

They are going to piss off a lot of young voters just to keep foxtel rich. Hopefully there will be easy ways to buy pass their bs.

[shokwave2]

I seriously don't have the time to sit down and watch ANY TV show. Plus most are garbage anyway. (Games Of Thrones is overrated tripe....it's soooo boring!)
I'm happy to buy the blockbuster Blu-Ray movies and leave it at that.
And.... I would not know how to download a movie even if I tried.

The Netflix library consists of both TV shows and movies, old and new, fiction and documentary. Actually, i've noticed a few movies hitting Netflix while they're still showing in theatres here. Plus there's some awesome shows that are Netflix originals such as Derek starring Ricky Gervais and heaps of stand-up comedy shows not shown anywhere else. Theres's actually more content on there then there is on Foxtel, plus it's immediately watchable with no ads, no waiting around for whatever time for the show to start. Highly recommended. And i agree on Game of Thrones, turned off after 10 minutes.

[Dkaris]

The people losing out if these laws come in will be telcos. Why would anyone still pay for a 500gb internet plan each month when they cant use the bandwidth? people will downgrade their net plans and put the money into other tools such as VPN's which will still allow downloading etc.

tldr aus business will lose out because the government needs to make Rupert Murdoch a few more million

[5FDP]

I'd love to go with an option like Netflix but my home internet connection is rubbish. I don't get anywhere near the required minimum speeds for most internet streaming services.

[kup]

Too many politicians and their (business owner) friends have a stake in Foxtel... so it will be well protected from any competition to its monopoly.

One of the big problems is that they are treating Foxtel as the same broadcast medium as free-to-air TV or online streaming... when it should be treated as its own broadcast medium (like radio, FTA-TV, Internet, pay-TV, newspapers, magazines). Each has its own realm and competitors... and exclusive rights to that broadcast medium.
Foxtel should be competing against other Pay-TV companies (like cable channels compete in America), but due to the way that broadcast medium was set up by the Federal Government, and then created a domineering juggernaut in the communications field of phones and Pay-TV when they sold off Telstra, Foxtel soon became a monopoly to Pay-TV (and phones).
It shouldn't be a direct competitor to FTA-TV, or Internet streaming of content, just because they've now crushed all opposition in the Pay-TV realm. The point of Pay-TV is to watch the same programs without advertising... that's what you are paying directly for, instead of indirectly on FTA-TV by patronising the advertisers. If Pay-TV keeps expanding on their exclusive content to the point of it being the only source of all the hit shows and sports, they'll start treating it like regular TV and fill the thing with commercials because exclusive content will be the incentive to pay for a subscription. (they haven't promoted "commercial free" for a long time now anyway)

Each of the other broadcast mediums are treated as separate for content, ratings and exclusive programming deals, so Foxtel shouldn't be given exclusive rights over other broadcast mediums. Otherwise, we will see more problems and more corruption by politicians protecting their investments, and their family and friends' investments, by prioritising and protecting Foxtel.

Foxtel is actually filled with ads. As bad or worse than free to air. It is pretty terrible and not worth the hefty cost.

[griffin]

Foxtel is actually filled with ads. As bad or worse than free to air. It is pretty terrible and not worth the hefty cost.

That's unfortunate... so their marketing perspective now is to pay for exclusive access to programs now.
If they didn't have packages of channels, and allowed people to select and pay for just the individual channels they want, more people might be willing to sign up as they would see their subscription being better value (by not being made to pay for channels they don't watch).

[kup]

That's unfortunate... so their marketing perspective now is to pay for exclusive access to programs now.
If they didn't have packages of channels, and allowed people to select and pay for just the individual channels they want, more people might be willing to sign up as they would see their subscription being better value (by not being made to pay for channels they don't watch).

Most people that I know pay for Foxtel. Mostly because our free to air TV is so terrible. Channels like GO and Eleven had some decent stuff for a while but they quickly became just extensions of their parent channels terrible programming. A conspiracy theorist could argue that this is done so that Foxtel looks more appealing...

Even so, I have seen Foxtel in action for an extended period and the channels are filled with ads, show episodes constantly repeat and they seem only able to show the first few seasons of the Simpsons over and over again.

It is freaking terrible but a lot of people still have it because as bad as it may be, it is still better than Free to air.

I am personally not willing to spend $60-$100 a month for dodgy ass TV with ads so I won't. Too bad a lot of people do as I only know for sure of two people without it and one of them includes myself.

[millhouse]

I use Netflix. My girlfriend and I don't watch anything other than a) local news (because of our lines of employment) and b) she'll sometimes get sucked into a home-reno series.

Both our parents' have Foxtel, and there's been the occasional day of hanging out at one of the 'rents watching trashy reality while shaking off a hangover.

Personally, I'm not terribly worried about the censorship of the internet. Piracy will always find a way, and I refuse to support local content providers that are rubbish when we live in a global world.

[AJ_Prime]

Piracy will always find a way, and I refuse to support local content providers that are rubbish when we live in a global world.

You hit the nail on the head there.

[klystron]

+1