Will European ISPs be forced to block illegal content?

The Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) is standing by its claim that UK ISPs should not have to block illegal content sent over their infrastructure despite a court ruling in Belgium, which could change the status quo.

Speaking Wednesday in the wake of the recent ruling in a Belgian court, a representative of ISPA maintained that ISPs should not be "set up to play judge and jury" over alleged copyright infringement.

Last week, a Belgian court ruled that the ISP Scarlet -- formerly Tiscali -- had the technology available to it to block or filter copyright-infringing material being sent over its network via peer-to-peer traffic, and had six months to start doing so.

The judgment drew praise from John Kennedy, chief executive of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, who said it proved that "the Internet's gatekeepers, the ISPs, have a responsibility to help control copyright-infringing traffic on their networks."

The case sets a precedent in European law but seems likely to be challenged. However, a similar decision won't surface in the UK anytime soon, according to telecommunications lawyer Danny Preiskel of Preiskel & Co.

"I think we are a way away from reaching a similar decision in the UK in imposing such liability," he told ZDNet Australia's sister site ZDNet UK, adding that such a case in the UK would be "fiercely resisted" by ISPs.

But ISPs in the UK are opening themselves up to some degree of liability by moving away from being providers of "pure conduits." They may be responsible for anything defamatory contained within the value-added content that many ISPs are now trying to sell to their customers, added Preiskel.

An ISPA representative noted that "ISPs are recognised in the eCommerce Directive (of 2002) as mere conduits of information."

The representative also responded to UK Conservative Party leader David Cameron's recent claims that, if ISPs could remove child pornography from their servers, they should also be willing to shut down the transmission of copyright-infringing material.

"We are talking about different things here--child pornography is criminal and copyright infringement can be a civil case," the ISPA representative said.

"ISPs shouldn't be set up to play judge and jury," the representative continued. "What we wouldn't want is corporate censorship. Any kind of censorship of the Internet has to be at the government level. ISPs are not law enforcement. We understand that ISPs play a part in combating instances of illegal activity on the Internet, which is why we engage with rights holders and work with government authorities on that basis, but we wouldn't say we're the gatekeepers of the Internet. The people responsible for unlawful content going up on the Internet are the people who put it there."

David Meyer reported for ZDNet UK from London