Coalition Government Reportedly Considering ISP Blocking Anti-Piracy Plan

All of this has happened before, and will happen again…

The Australian this morning has gotten wind that the new Attorney-General, George Brandis, has a job to tackle piracy as a priority.

Reportedly, that has involved sending letters to the heads of telcos, ISPs and other industry bodies about having a renewed chin-wag on how to solve the issue.

The plan also involve allowing studios to sue ISPs in order to have websites that distribute pirated material blocked. Sound familiar?

How long before that list leaks and becomes a treasure trove of sites for pirates to go get new material from? How long before studios abuse the ability to sue ISPs and sites that aren’t explicitly for pirating material are blocked? How will the blocking be done? Will it be CISPA-esque and break the internet? How many times do we have to go over this before we discover that it’s well and truly a bad idea?

It’s curious that the new Coalition government would consider allowing the blocking of websites, considering that during its tenure in Opposition, now-Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull spent his time demonising Labor’s proposed mandatory internet filter. [The Australian]

What do you think of potential anti-piracy filtering strategies? Can piracy be stopped?


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