Nope, I'm in the US. Actually, I've never torrented anything so it really doesn't affect me. Can't blame you for not liking it though.
In some ways its a good thing but if people want to pirate stuff, then they'll just find something else :/
There are literally hundreds of sites linking torrents on the internet. Hell, there are plenty of sites offering free direct downloads of the same content. The Pirate Bay is just the best known. I don't like clampdowns on freedoms generally but I'm afraid the only people this will affect are the habitual copyright infringers. Also, any ISP blocks will be circumvented in mere minutes by those who really want access.
Proxies. Anyway, Thepiratebay can be backed up to a few MB and rehosted in minutes. They (ISPs or internet watchdogs) would have to constantly monitor the internet to make sure someone doesn't back up the site via proxy and rehost it under a different (non-blocked) domain. The people who are downloading illegally will keep doing so. The people who aren't, won't.
Isn't thepiratebay well known for just shifting its servers? I'm guessing they'll relocate their servers, get new IPs and rename the site a bit. Edit: Also, when is it being blocked because it's still running at the moment.
I browse their website from time to time, but don't actually download from there anymore. Would be sad to see it go!! Where do the authorities draw the line?
Piratebay are so 2005. it's now back to retro Newsgroup style. won't affect me as i don't really use it. there's also hundreds of other torrent index websites, so can't really see how blocking one site would affect piracy, let alone stop it. as long as they don't block newzbin, oh wait they did.
To be honest, there's not that much point to torrenting. Sure you get a film or whatever for free, but the fastest torrents are generally crap quality. I'd much rather pay £5 a month to Lovefilm and stream whatever I want. And if I want to watch a really new film, £3 is hardly a bank breaker. Given how cheap access to films and games is, I really don't see the point.
Trouble is that lovefilm is very limited in what is available. I use lovefilm for Blu-rays and the girlfriend streams with it. We also still use Blockbuster sometimes when we are in need of a good Blu-ray.
Not unless you know what you are looking for and only get the ones which have positive comments and an NFO File
Well yes, even though I know what I'm after, the quality is still extremely poor compared to a proper DVD or Blu Ray. I'd much rather pay a little bit each month, do it legally and get a good quality movie or whatever.
There was a similar case here - court ordered ISPs to block some of the gambling sites, ISPs asked court how exactly they should do that and a couple years later still nothing is blocked.