In May, the US Copyright Group's "pay or else" suit over torrent downloads of the movie The Hurt Locker slammed over 5,000 individuals.  One might have expected that downloads of the movie might have dropped.

However, they have actually been going quite strong; the film was downloaded 200,000 times in June, with 23 percent of the downloads coming from the U.S.  Some observers believe that the movie's producers may actually be content with the illegal downloads.  Despite losing millions of copies in sales, its likely still logging IP addresses and will be able to recoup millions in threat payouts.  For that reason, the film's producers have made no effort to remove the film from popular torrent sites.

Elsewhere, torrent sites are clearly being targeted for takedown.  Following the escape to overseas hosting in 2005 in the wake of the LokiTorrent and EliteTorrents suits, torrent hosters have offered up open defiance to anything media watchdog groups like the MPAA and RIAA can throw at them.

However, torrent downloads are actually continuing to increase, with the efforts against them seemingly having little effect, either on the downloads or the sites that host them.

The Pirate Bay, perhaps the best known site, is still very much in action and, according to some sources, turning a small profit.  Threats, police raids, civil actions, ISP-ordered takedowns, and even sentencing the Swedish admins that ran the site to jail time ultimately has offered no relief to the media industry.  The site still is up and running complete with copyrighted material.

Similarly, market-leading Usenet indexer Newzbin – after its recent defeat in Netherlands court over free-speech regarding piracy – is right back in the gray.  After a brief takedown, the site has returned to the same URL, with dozens of movie listings being added daily.  The site's admins, who have invested over $40,000 USD in the site, even brazenly boasted about plans to profit off of it.

That kind of sentiment seen by The Pirate Bay and Newzbin increasingly seems the sentiment in the pirate community.  And the public seems to be becoming increasingly brazen in their piracy as well.

Frustrated media watchdog groups are generally turning to two solutions.  Either to craft mass threat schemes like The Hurt Locker's or spend money lobbying the government for harsher punishments.  Both solutions are problematic for the industry groups.  The problem with settlement schemes is that law firms demand a big cut (in The Hurt Locker case, reportedly 70 percent of the settlements).  And the legislative effort is no better as it risk mass public outrage, if efforts such as the jailing of filesharers or repeal of free speech about piracy are passed.