The Crusade against Piracy

This year has seen a remarkably intense crusade against online piracy.  Governments and corporations around the world claim that piracy causes billions of dollars of damages in lost revenues, despite studies showing that piracy doesn't have a negative economic impact.  Early this year, the United States Congress tried to pass SOPA and PIPA, two anti-piracy measures.  Support for these collapsed in the face of mass protests, however, so they never came into effect.  Furthermore, in January, the United States government, working with New Zealand authorities, oversaw the seizure of MegaUpload, a popular file-sharing site that critics said was designed to further piracy.  Kim Dotcom, the owner of the site, was arrested and millions of dollars in property were confiscated.  MegaUpload has shown recent signs of coming back, but there's still no certainty when or even if it will.  In August, American and Ukrainian authorities brought down Demonoid, a popular BitTorrent site.  More recently, there have been vague signs of life, but little progress towards a revival.

More recently, The Pirate Bay, which champions itself as "The Galaxy's Most Resilient BitTorrent site" also went offline.  This is not the first time, in 2006 Swedish Authorities raided TPB, causing it to go offline for three days.  This raid was described as "highly unsuccessful", with the Pirate Bay coming back online more popular than ever.  Once again, the web host of The Pirate Bay, PRQ (which describes itself as a "no-questions-asked host") has been raided and the site has gone down. Will this be the end of TPB?  Doubtful.  The Pirate Bay has shown a remarkable ability to adapt and thrive, even in the face of adversity.  

The War on Piracy has not just been confined to the United States and other countries it has succeeded in bullying.  The Philippines recently passed the Cybercrime Prevention Act, a remarkably vague rule that criminalizes, among other things, piracy and pornography.  A few weeks back, a new French anti-piracy law claimed its first victim, a man who has been convicted of failing to secure his internet connection.

What does the future hold?  I think we can safely say that there will be more serious laws designed to stamp out online piracy, and further seizures of file sharing websites.  I also believe, however, that The Pirate Bay will be back, and that pirates will find new and innovative ways to get around ever fiercer restrictions.  There's one thing of which we can be certain: the battle will be long and hard, and there's no telling yet which way it will go.  Government can try to stamp out internet activists, but it won't be easy.