[LINK] Green light for internet filter plans

[rene]

On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 03:00:11 GMT, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:

> It appears that if the film industry (AFACT) win their current iiNet
> ISP court case, then ISPs will be forced to implement filters. Maybe
> Senator Conroy has inside info that AFACT may indeed win, and hence,
> is 'getting in early' regarding widescale Aussie ISP filtering?

There has long been speculation from some quarters that the govt's 
mandatory blocking plan is being backed/influenced/whatever by AFACT etc 
and that it's really about blocking copyright infringement downloads.

Imo, that's a distraction from the real issues, and it's highly unlikely 
that copyright infringement has anything whatsoever to do with the govt's 
mandatory censorship/blocking 'plan'. Even *if* it does, there is *zero* in 
existing BSA net censorship legislation which would enable the government 
to require ISPs to block alleged copyright infringement material, and there 
is no means of changing that with legislative amendments, passed by the 
Senate, which would also have to give some government agency or government 
approved 'independent body' power to somehow determine that any particular 
file/material breaches copyright in the circumstances for which it is 
published and/or downloaded by any particular person.

All indications to date are the government's intentions are plainly 
censorship of material/information that is controversial for reasons that 
have nothing whatsoever to do with copyright.

Irene