Website Blocking Imminent As Senate Passes Controversial Legislation

The government's grasp on the pervasive problem of online piracy has tightened following the passing of legislation in the Senate designed to facilitate the blocking of websites deemed to have the "primary purpose" of enabling illegal file-sharing.

Essentially, the laws grant content rights holders the ability to submit to a Federal Court judge their appeal to block overseas websites that they deem to be hurting their business. If successful, Australian ISPs will be forced to throw up the gates.

As Fairfax reports, the legislation — officially the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015 — passed with the bipartisan support of both the Coalition and the Labor Party, outvoting the Greens (Senator Scott Ludlam described the bill as "lazy and dangerous") and Senators David Leyonhjelm, Glenn Lazarus and Ricky Muir 37-13. 

"We should wait a year to see what impact these changes have on the level of unauthorised downloading before proceeding with problematic legislation that has the potential to disrupt the Internet."

Several prominent home-entertainment industry figures have lauded the decision, with Australian Home Entertainment Distributors Association head Simon Bush gushing to The Sydney Morning Herald, "This is a watershed moment … a fantastic day and a really positive sign for the creative content industry," while Foxtel boss Richard Freudenstein commended the "strong action" in a statement, saying that "not only is piracy theft and therefore morally wrong, it is harmful to Australia's creative communities and businesses".

"These offshore sites are not operated by noble spirits fighting for the freedom of the internet, they are run by criminals who profit from stealing other people's creative endeavours."

However, it's not all positive: prior to the passing of the legislation, Internet Society chief executive Laurie Patton said in a statement that the organisation could not support the introduction of any such limiting changes, especially so soon after the widespread rollout of streaming video on-demand (SVOD) services in Australia.

"We have only recently seen the launch of a number of SVOD platforms that have significantly increased the amount of content legally available," Patton said. "We should wait a year to see what impact these changes have on the level of unauthorised downloading before proceeding with problematic legislation that has the potential to disrupt the Internet."

In addition, ANU College Of Law associate professor Dr Matthew Rimmer told Fairfax the bill's passing marked "a very dark day for the internet in Australia" and that its ambiguous wording could lead to unwanted problems later on for generally legitimate sites that unintentionally host copyrighted content (for example, YouTube).

"What is 'primary purpose'? There's no definition," Rimmer told the SMH. "What is 'facilitation'? Again, there's no definition. I think the larger question will be: what sites will be affected? Will rights holders be focused on the sites they want to target or will there be collateral damage?"