What You Need To Know About Australia's New Anti-Piracy Laws

Winter is coming... for pirates.

A new law was passed yesterday that will make it difficult for Australians to pirate movies, television and music going forward.

The legislation allows copyright holders to ask the Federal Court to block international websites – like, say, The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents – that offer content infringing on their copyright. (Video-player DailyMotion is also expected to be among the first evaluated under the new law.)

What is this blocking process actually going to look like?

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the Federal Court must make the judgment to block a site or not after evaluating if their “primary purpose” is “to infringe, or to facilitate the infringement of, copyright.”

Only websites operated outside of Australia can be blocked under this law. The individual ISPs will decide how sites are blocked and in what way the blocking will be implemented.

The Government has also agreed to review the laws after 18 months.

Has this been done before?

Yes. Similar legislation passed in the UK four years ago, to little success, with many “mirror sites” immediately popping up in the place of blocked websites.

Are VPNs safe?

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull insists Australia’s anti-piracy legislation will not block VPN use (which allows users to hide their location from an ISP and sends all web activity through an overseas server). However, as there is no specific protection of VPNs in the legislation, some have floated the possibility of their potential blocking in the future.

Does this mean I need to find a new way to watch Game of Thrones?

Given that a third of Australian GOT fans have reportedly been pirating the show, I'd say 'probably'.