Music Industry Attacks Piracy – Again

In a wearying move that speaks of few lessons learned, yesterday news broke that the French Civil Society of Phonographic Producers has filed for an injunction to prevent French ISPs from providing access to The Pirate Bay website, and more than hundred of its dedicated proxy sites. As reported on Torrentfreak.com, the FCSPP, which represents the interests of major entertainment corporatons in France, have requested the French high court to enforce a blockade on those sites it sees as major offenders. Having noted the effect of such blockades in other countries, with proxy servers quickly springing up to allow alternative routes to sites such as Pirate Bay, the FCSPP has also requested that the blockade be extended to any known proxy sites.

Naturally this is all fairly meaningless – in the UK the Pirate Bay has been blocked by numerous ISPs, but sites such as Kick Ass Torrents have been allowed to operate unmolested. It seems fairly certain that once someone has worked out how to torrent a file, they will have also worked out how to use a search engine other than Google, and how to find an unblocked torrent site. In the meantime, the music industry continues to treat file sharing as the enemy within, resorting to increasingly ludicrous draconian sanctions, as if the force with which you slam the stable door makes a blind bit of fucking difference when the horse has long fled…