Streaming is here to stay

House of Cards, starring Kevin Spacey, is one of many series being shown online before its NZ release.

OMG. How good is the new season of House of Cards?

There are, of course, two possible answers to that question.

One: you haven't seen it because it hasn't played on New Zealand TV, and, coincidentally, you're still trying to remember how to log on to that Facebook thing again.

Two: you have seen it and, to be honest, found it a little slow through the middle of the season. You watched it online, you naughty, naughty person. And so you, my friend, will want to know about the legal action that may make watching TV shows online just a little harder.

First, though, let's go back to 1982. Boom boxes were all the rage. Group aerobics was an acceptable hobby. But, something equally iconic almost never happened, and that was the VCR.

The Video Cassette Recorder was going to be the death of the movies. Industry bosses warned it would let people start recording hours of TV and share it with each other like naughty magazines in the school yard, and no one would go to the flicks any more.

The movie industry took the VCR to Congress. It took the VCR to court. The VCR won by a single vote, and everyone still has one in a cupboard somewhere. Now, you may wonder if the experience of the dusty old VCR is about to be repeated in this bid to stop us being able to watch whatever we want, whenever we want, from anywhere in the world.

For those who don't know, this legal action is being taken by the bosses at TVNZ, TV3, Sky and Spark. They're trying to stop us watching House of Cards on American websites while we wait the six weeks and counting for it to come to New Zealand.

They want the court to stop our internet providers helping us to trick those websites into thinking we live in America and should be allowed to watch.

So will they succeed? No. Let them take their court case. It's not going to affect us. Nothing can stop us now. We've been doing it for too long.

If they win and our internet providers have to stop the trickery, we'll just start using clever little things called VPNs to get to those American sites. Don't freak out, you don't need to know about VPNs now. Google it if you have to.

If even VPNs aren't allowed any more, we'll just log on to illegal sites and watch the same shows even if they're a little bit grainy, slightly out of sync and have Spanish subtitles.

Yes, that is very naughty and you could be taken to the Copyright Tribunal. But I had a quick look for you and since that tribunal was established four years ago, no one has been hauled in front of it for watching illegal videos.

In truth, the bosses taking legal action aren't trying to stop us watching what we want.

They're trying to save some sweet cash for themselves. They are paying mega-bucks to the studios in America for the right to be the only companies playing those shows in New Zealand.

If the court says we're allowed to watch them somewhere else - like American websites - then the bosses will be able to argue they shouldn't be paying as much as they are. Which sounds fair.

And by the way, that forgotten, dusty VCR eventually saved the movie industry's arse. Two words: video rentals. Now, online access to videos is probably going to save the TV industry. The world has been changing since 1982 and no one can stop it.