14 DAY TRIAL // It didn't last long, a few weeks ago a UK court decided that, because blocking The Pirate Bay was such a huge success, more torrent sites should meet the same fate.
Three of the most popular in the country were targeted. KickassTorrents, H33T and Fenopy were deemed a threat to the copyright-dependent corporations and the court ordered ISPs to block access to them.
Now, the ISPs, at least some of them, have started blocking the three BitTorrent sites, as evidence in the surge of people asking whether the sites are down.
Normally, visitors from the UK should see a warning page from their ISP explaining that the site is blocked by court order. It does seem that at least some ISPs aren't doing a great job at that, judging by the confused users.
The Pirate Bay was notoriously blocked in the UK a while back. Countless proxies propped up, people turned to VPNs or simply started using other sites.
All the data indicates that there has been no effect on piracy whatsoever with the closure of the site.
But data and facts never stopped the copyright dependent industries from moving forward with their flawed plans to destroy piracy.
People now blocked from visiting these popular BitTorrent sites will simply find ways of getting around the block, which is easy, or find other pirate sites. In fact, here are a few simple ways of bypassing the block.
Until the content industry gets its act together and starts offering compelling alternatives to BitTorrent sites, that offer the same simplicity, speed and convenience, even if they charge for it, piracy is not going down just because of a few roadblocks.
It doesn't look like the media industry is even close to getting this, they have resisted reason and facts so far and don't seem to want or be able to change.
Change will come, inevitably, though it remains to be seen whether any of the big record labels and movie studios will still be alive to see it.