New laws bad news for illegal downloaders

Australians will be blocked from downloading popular TV series like Game Of Thrones for free under new draft laws before parliament.

The legislation introduced to parliament on Thursday will allow rights-holders to seek a court injunction forcing internet service providers to block access to piracy websites hosted overseas.

Foreign sites that allow illegal downloads of TV shows, movies or music will be shut off to Australians.

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull says the laws are a "powerful mechanism" that empower rights-holders to protect their creative content.

Just because people had become accustomed to expecting free content and generally indifferent to copyright, it didn't make it right.

"The flagrant disregard of the rights of copyright owners is wrong - both legally and morally," Mr Turnbull told parliament.

"It's a form of theft."

The minister promised a number of safeguards that would balance the interests of individuals with those of creative industries.

The Federal Court must consider a number of factors before issuing the injunction - whether it's in the public interest to block access, the flagrancy of piracy and if the site holds more non-pirated content than otherwise.

Consumer groups have welcomed the safeguards but want assurances they won't prevent access to legal content.

However, the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network said the piracy issue was a problem of a lack of access to affordable content.

Australia has one of the highest rates of online piracy in the world.

The season-four finale of Game of Thrones was illegally downloaded by locals a record 1.5 million times within 12 hours of the show being aired in the US.