Pirate Bay has been under attack from the authorities for some time as they continue to allow users to share copyrighted files for free. The website has been at the forefront of free file sharing since it was set up in Sweden in 2003. However in the past few weeks some of the major internet service providers have started to block the websites access for their customers.

ISP's Move to Block File Sharing Website

The Pirate Bay has set itself the mantra of being “the galaxy’s most resilient BitTorrent website” and until now they have managed to defy all calls to close down. Currently the website is listed as the 71^st most visited website in the world which makes it a major player in the global internet market. The website has also got approximately five million registered users and hosts around four million torrents.

For non internet terminology savvy readers a BitTorrent is a peer to peer file sharing protocol. Essentially this is where one person uploads a file and allows others to download it for free. In the case of Pirate Bay this file sharing covers copyright protected items such as music files, movies and other in demand media.

A formal complaint was made to the High Court by the British Phonographic Industry which accused the website of facilitating copyright infringement. The accusation claims that the website facilities users sharing copyrighted content by providing each other with magnetic links.

A magnetic link is a link towards some sort of file or content that is available for download. A magnetic link is different from a normal download link as it references a file by content and not location. This basically means that the file does not need to have a consistently available host to allow users to download the file.

Sky is latest internet service provider to block the website and it follows the major player Virgin Media and the lesser known Everything Everywhere. There are still a number of service providers to follow the court action most notably BT, O2 and Talktalk. BT has requested further time from the courts to arrange a full block however due to the high publicity around this issue it is thought they will force this action through as quickly as possible.

June 1st Deadline Has Now Passed

The initial deadline for service providers to act was the 1^st of June however the above have been given extensions. It is thought that the way that the blocks will work will be to have complete restrictions set against a number of Internet Protocols that have been identified with the website. However a news service that supports this type of activity has already reported that The Pirate Bay has already taken steps to set up new IP addresses with the sole aim being to jump the blocks.

There have been other commentators asking for further more serious action to be taken. However they have called for the action to be taken against the end users and not just the web portal itself. They believe that by destroying the websites users they will in turn reduce the amount of available files for download and this would kill the popularity.