MUMBAI: Australian anti-piracy body the Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation (IPAF) has started rolling out a major new national advertising and public education campaign, covering print, television, radio, cinema and social media to combat the findings of a research that found that 1 out of 3 Australians are involved in film and TV content theft or piracy. 

“Our research provided us with some shocking overall statistics such as 53% of people pirated film or TV content during the year. We also found that people think they are basically honest. We learned some Australians don’t agree with piracy and don’t think they contribute to the content theft problem while regularly doing it. People aren’t making the connection between their actions and their beliefs," said IPAF CEO Gail Grant.

The campaign that runs under the tagline “The Accidental Pirate,” through TV and cinema commercials is designed to make people question their actions and attitudes towards piracy and to find out more. The new campaign replaces the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft three-year-old campaign, “What Are You Really Burning?”

IPAF is a coalition of industry groups and others involved in the entertainment sector, the membership of which includes the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia, the MPA, AFACT, several pay TV operators and various cinema and home entertainment organisations.