I was at a conference some years back where one of the panels discussed how VoIP was blocked unsuccessfully in country after country. The point the speaker made was you can’t stop IP. Users and developers are always one step ahead, masking their packets in ways (HTTP, etc) which gets through firewalls and other systems designed to thwart such communications.

I remember something similar happening when Airlines provided WiFi for the first time and blocked VoIP yet Andy Abramson found a way through.

So it should come as no surprise that music sharing which started with Napster, moved onto other services like Kazaa, Pirate Bay and has now evolved to use VPNs.

Now the challenge for record labels and others looking to determine who is sharing and what has grown substantially. The downside? Well as the BBC points out, VPNs cost users 5-6 pounds per month in the UK making file sharing a more expensive proposition.

Still, when you have a motivated audience with plenty of free time on their hands thanks to record unemployment in much of Europe and the US – it seems there are no lengths they won’t go through to share music for free.