internet filtering

There seems to be a shift in how Governments and rightsholders are looking to use Internet intermediaries, such as ISPs, to enforce Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) on line.

The latest judgment from the BT/Newzbin case sets out what BT will be required to do to prevent its users accessing the Newzbin2 website that an earlier case found to be breaching copyright.

I was struck by a recent suggestion from the Minister for Culture, Media and Sport that there could be “a cross-industry body, perhaps modelled on the Internet Watch Foundation [IWF], to be charged with identifying infringing websites against which action could be taken”.

Last year's Digital Economy Act 2010 created a power (s.17) for a court to order a service provider to prevent access to a "location on the Internet" if that location was being used, or likely to be used, to infringe copyright. That power has not been brought into force and last January Ofcom were asked to report to the Government on whether such blocking could be effective. In the past week there have been two, apparently contradictory, developments.