Sites like The Pirate Bay are recognized for their unique branding but in today’s pirate streaming sector, individuality can mean copying a successful site and buying the closest possible domain. Countering ISP blocking is a driving force but opportunists are also putting Coke labels on cheap, generic cola. Thanks to the High Court in London, pirating other pirates ends in site blocking.

Ten years ago the High Court in London ordered all major ISPs in the country to block The Pirate Bay. The injunction couldn’t stop the site from operating but indirectly left its mark in more insidious ways.

To demonstrate the futility of blocking, hundreds of Pirate Bay-themed proxy and mirror sites swarmed online, ready to stick to the man. Most looked and functioned like The Pirate Bay itself and by undermining the injunction, quickly became go-to platforms in the UK. Within the file-sharing community it was seen as a glorious yet functional display of the ‘hydra effect’. But more was to come.

Over the next decade more than 20,000 sites and 75,000 domains would find themselves blocked in 39 countries, a total that now includes mirrors and proxies that facilitate access to previously blocked sites. Thousands are covered by dynamic injunctions, meaning that if previously banned sites use new domains to circumvent blocking, those will be blocked more quickly than the originals, no court process needed.

The rest of this article can be read on TorrentFreak.com

Source link