I always found it incredible how many otherwise decent folks who’d never in a million years think of themselves as criminals would think nothing about online piracy. It’s a little bit like those old cardboard cut-outs of police officers in department stores saying, “Shoplifting is a crime!” Really? Were people really in the dark about this? How useful that the cardboard police officer was there to let us know that if you want some new clothes, you’ll need to pay for them.

Obviously, there was a percentage of the population who were in the dark that going to Kmart and not handing over some money for your goods was on shaky legal ground, but I always assumed that percentage was through the floor. Maybe it wasn’t.

I say this because today the website Newsroom published a story about the percentage of Kiwis who regularly pirate content. Turns out almost a third of Kiwis are illegally enjoying content they haven’t paid for on a “regular” basis – roughly every six months – with 10-percent doing it weekly.

With Sky TV in New Zealand behind the research, they believe this piracy is costing them millions upon millions in lost revenue annually.

There are potential solutions, or at least, measures that can be taken that lessen the problem. As the Newsroom article states, “site blocking” technology has worked well overseas with a “22-percent decrease in in piracy for all users affected by the blocks” in the UK. This has also corresponded with the rise in popularity of legal streaming sites like Netflix.

Something else is at play though. Whether it’s watching overseas sport or TV drama like Game Of Thrones, or pre the days of Spotify, downloading music you haven’t paid for, the human race seems to be in danger of losing the concept of exchanging money for entertainment.

I used to have a mate who we’d joke had watched all the trendiest TV shows online before they’d even been made. Season 2 of Homeland? He’d seen it before season 1 had even been given the green-light!

Slight exaggeration to one side, this is a guy who had most likely never committed any other crimes in his life. A family man. Lovely wife. Sweet kids. Online thief. 

How did this happen? The Newsroom piece quotes Sky TV’s Sophie Maloney as saying that people just don’t realise the sheer numbers of people involved in getting any sort of TV to air: 80 people for an All Blacks test and something crazy like over 3500 for an episode of Game Of Thrones.

As a music fanatic I hated how people went from spending $30 for a CD in the 90s to downloading their favourite albums for free. Where was the middle ground! Clearly, our 90s prices were over-inflated and for a time it seemed like iTunes had proved people didn’t mind paying if the price was fair.   

But even with Spotify – a 100-percent legal service – the low royalty rates suggest the concept of valuing art is dying. We enjoy art, we need entertainment for our happiness and sanity, but do we really value it anymore? Perhaps we need a few more cardboard cut-out police officers with their handy signs to remind us.

Tim Roxborogh hosts Newstalk ZB’s Weekend Collective and is filling-in for Andrew Dickens this week from 12pm-4pm.