A decade into the entertainment industry’s massive game of whac-a-mole when it comes to file sharing sites, you would think that people would realize that blocking or banning any particular site doesn’t do a damn thing to slow the pace of file sharing around the globe. Instead, it does two things: (1) informs more people of the social norm of unauthorized file trading and (2) causes people to scatter to more sites, usually further underground and even more difficult to identify and stop. And, indeed, that appears to be the case in Italy. You may recall that the Italian Supreme Court recently decided that it was okay for a lower court to block The Pirate Bay (the lower court is now deciding what to do), but in response, it appears that users have already figured out how to scatter to other sites, as many other torrent sites have seen an influx of Italian users. Another mole whacked, and yet, more keep popping up. It’s difficult to see how this is a particularly good strategic policy.
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