The subject of illegal piracy has been a constant thorn in the foot of the media industry for decades now. After sinking such big guns as Napster and Limewire, they began taking to the streets, targeting youngsters for their illegal online activities by doling out crushing fines, leaving them drawn and quartered as a warning to all other torrid-torrent youths. For so long we’ve been watching as our friends across the sea have been gradually put under the knife, while the issue has remained rather a puff of smoke down under.

Having been in the pipeline for many years, reports came in saying that strict new anti-piracy measures will be landing on our doorstep “as early as this week”. Spearheaded by the Attorney General, George Brandis, the crackdown falls to the federal cabinet in the form of two separate proposed solutions.

The first is by forcing ISPs to block file-sharing websites such as The Pirate Bay. The second consideration would see the ISPs issuing warnings to repeat illegal downloaders, with the possibility of being denied use of the ISP and potential legal action brought against them.

Despite the fact online piracy is perpetrated by people at home in their bedrooms, undeniably ISPs are the linchpin of these proposed reforms, highlighting Brandis’ argument that ISPs “need to take some responsibility” as they “provide the facility which enables this to happen”.

With Australians being notoriously one of the greatest offenders of online piracy in the world, any change will be sure to make waves when it inevitably crashes on our shores (seemingly sooner than expected). We know none of you would ever ‘download a car’, but in the interest of public service to those less ethical, they should switch The Pirate Bay for iTunes to grab their copy of Claude VonStroke’s upcoming ‘Urban Animals’ LP, or Banks’ greatly anticipated debut ‘Goddess’.