UK internet providers have been ordered to lower the Jolly Roger and block access to file-sharing site The Pirate Bay. Is this the right way to deal with the issue, or will illegal file-sharers just get their jollies elsewhere?

The High Court has laid down the law to Sky, Virgin, TalkTalk, O2 and Everything Everywhere, with BT soon to follow. All of the major UK ISPs are to block access to the Pirate Bay within weeks, with 3.7 million UK users of the site likely to be affected.

High Court Judge Mr Justice Arnold stated resolutely that The Pirate Bay was allowing ‘both users and operators to infringe the copyright of the claimants in the UK’. The decision has immediately been welcomed by the British Phonographic Industry, but other voices are cautious about the implications of this move.

Censorship on the high seas?

Internet advocacy groups are already insisting that the move to block access to The Pirate Bay is a worrying sign of censorship. Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, said:

‘Blocking The Pirate Bay is pointless and dangerous. It will fuel calls for further, wider and even more drastic calls for Internet censorship of many kinds, from pornography to extremism.’

However, is blocking a site which facilitates an illegal activity really as bad as Mr Killock is making out? His argument is that it’s a slippery slope from blocking The Pirate Bay to blocking a site which promotes political views that could be deemed illegal by a ruling government.

But let’s take that argument off the internet and on to the street. Would banning illegal DVD-sellers from a town centre be considered a slippery slope to banning assembly of political groups? I wouldn’t argue so.

The right way to stop illegal file-sharing?

Aside from the censorship debate, there’s a greater issue of whether blocking access to one site, even a very prominent one, will truly settle the problem of illegal file-sharing.

The Pirate Bay doesn’t store the illegal files itself – instead it provides a simple means for finding where they are and where they can be shared. If The Pirate Bay is blocked, there will be plenty of other sites out there that can do the same.

To use another analogy, if you closed down a factory which produced plastic vials known to be used in the drugs trade, this wouldn’t stop the drugs trade itself. People would just use other containers.

Will the Digital Economy Act solve anything?

Perhaps the long-delayed Digital Economy Act (DEA) will prove a more effective tool, though its implementation has now been shelved until 2014. Under the DEA, suspected file-sharers will be notified by their ISPs that if they continue to do so their details will be shared with copyright owners.

It’s a solution that hasn’t satisfied all parties involved, least of all the ISPs, who are baulking at having to shoulder the cost and responsibility of contacting their customers in this manner.

But as the debate over blocking The Pirate Bay shows, there’s no easy way to navigate the issue of illegal file-sharing, and undoubtedly there are rough waters ahead.