No one expected the UK to block its citizens from accessing domains like The Pirate Bay. But it did, and now that the Aeolian Islands have opened, they probably won't. Three very popular BitTorrent sites were banned in the UK today, and ISPs were ordered to block their subscribers from accessing them.
The names of the three websites are well known to pirates or anyone who follows the scene: Kickass Torrents, H33T and Fenopy are all blocked in the United Kingdom as of today.
The British Phonographic Industry argues that the websites are dedicated to nothing more than copyright infringement, and the British Supreme Court found no reason to disagree with this.
BPI has asked several ISPs, the same ones that block The Pirate Bay. The ISPs sought a court order to comply, but that didn't seem to be an obstacle for BPI.
The blocking of the Pirate Bay in Britain did not reduce piracy, at least not in terms of BitTorrent piracy, as many studies have shown. In fact, a recent report by the NDP group showed that music downloads in the US decreased significantly, but only when interested parties had legal alternatives, such as Spotify.
The British, after all (personal opinion) will not stop downloading via torrents. There are always alternative sites or private trackers or even VPNs, proxies and so on.
