‘Ireland’s SOPA’ To Pass Without Parliamentary Vote
By Olivia Solon
Ireland is soon to have a law similar to SOPA passed that would give music and movie companies the power to force Irish ISPs to block access to sites suspected of having copyright infringing material on them.
Irish citizens won’t have a chance to lobby their democratic representatives because there won’t be a vote on the law — snappily named “S.I. No. of 2011 European Communities (Copyright and Related Rights) Regulations 2011? — in the Irish Parliament. Instead the law is being enacted by ministerial order because it is being prepared in the form of a Statutory Instrument.
The law could mean that judges can order Irish ISPs — such as Eircom and UPC — as well as mobile networks to block access to social networking sites where an individual user has shared infringing material.
The legislation was prepared in response to a court decision that ruled that although the rights of EMI were being breached by internet providers letting its copyrighted works be shared for free, the law didn’t have any way of addressing the situation — something that European law requires. It was hoped that the legislation might appease rights holders, but that hasn’t stopped the record label from filing a lawsuit against the Irish government for failing to clamp down on music piracy.
An early draft of the law said that the copyright holder can apply to the high court for an injunction against the person who provides the facilities that are used by third parties to infringe their copyright.
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http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/01/irelands-sopa/
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