vRRitti.com, providing sentiency

In a series of Dutch and international news articles various internet service providers are claiming that blocking the Pirate Bay website does not have the desired effect, BitTorrent traffic would only have been increasing recently.

It’s clear that nobody has the data substantiate the claim, although site popularity services such as the one by Alexa do show that not only local traffic to The Pirate Bay has been decreasing, but the same applies to global traffic to The Pirate Bay website.

There’s still this awkward paradox: if internet providers are absolutely sure that:

a) internet censorship will never work because data will always find a way to circumvent any blockade and

b) they feel that BitTorrent traffic in general, and to the Pirate Bay specifically, has only been increasing

…then why are they so keen on making that point over and over again? Shouldn’t they just be happy with that situation and not bother at all about these useless blocking measures, because everybody can get their hands on the content they desire anyway, whether illegal or not?

It may be that the providers want to prevent rights owners from having to go through the trouble of launching costly litigation time and again. Or providers just don’t like any jurisprudence aimed at internet censorship no matter whether the proposed measure will work or not.

But it does seem to be a bit odd that providers are even bothering discussing these issues if what they say about the futility of site blocking remedies is actually true.

Perhaps it’s realization by many that one day, more effective blocking and filtering methods may be put in place, such as the one put forward by UK ISP Claranet.

Relevant news articles: