14 DAY TRIAL // Australia is getting ready to say goodbye to Kickass Torrents, which will be blocked across the entire country by the end of next month.
The Australian Federal Court ordered more than 20 Australian ISPs to block KAT across a number of domains. This is the result of a case that started back in May 2016 when music labels Universal, Sony and Warner Music started a fight against the popular website. The copyright holders started the legal action under website-blocking laws that were adopted in Australia back in 2015.
The ISPs have 15 business days to take all the needed steps to block the sites by using DNS blocking. The order will remain active for the next three years, which means Australian users of the site won't be able to access it until the order expires. Chances are quite high that the music labels will only extend the order after that.
The main issue with site blockades
The problem with this type of orders is, however, that the site can move at any time and access will once more be restored.
This is one of the main issues that comes with this type of blockades - the order covers a certain domain, and ISPs have to work to block that exact address. Since sites can easily change domains, especially torrent sites which are forced to do this more often than most, people can gain access quite easily.
Pirate sites, in fact, are known for their ability to jump from one corner of the world to the other. The Pirate Bay went through quite a few of these jumps a few years ago and it seemed like every other day we were reporting a new domain.
This whole blockade on pirate sites seems like an uphill battle with no real success. On the one hand, the sites can move domains. On the other, there are plenty of proxy site alternatives out there, not to mention VPN solutions to bypass the blockade altogether.