It's the combined effects of - their unawareness of BitTorrent (the Galapagos effect) - the unwillingness to/difficulty of using English-language torrent site

It's the combined effects of - their unawareness of BitTorrent (the Galapagos effect) - the unwillingness to/difficulty of using English-language torrent sites - a lack of Japanese champions of BT BT simply never took off there, and Freenet hasn't taken off anywhere from what I know. I recall coming across a single BT site that was being used by a small but significant number of Japanese, which was surprising, but everything we heard indicated that WinNY and Share dominated there. Similarly, BT isn't a major player in Korea (which has its own networks), but dominates in China. The Internet is a series of interconnected but independently evolving regions. Also, people will keep using a risky network if the chance of arrest is low and the benefits substantial enough. Humans are lazy, after all.