Yesterday, the Belgian copyright watchdog named SABAM, which is kind of the same as MPAA and RIAA, wrote a letter to the 2 largest Belgian ISPs, pushing them to install download filters to prevent illegal material being downloaded.
While SABAM has been trying to do something on the 'copyright infringements' in Belgium, they have had very little success. In 2004, they started a lawsuit against a small ISP, at that time called Tiscali. Tiscali merged with Scarlet, and became the third provider in our country. In the lawsuit, SABAM wanted that the ISP would take measures to prevent the use of p2p programs, in particular by installing filters. The judge agreed with SABAM that customers were downloading illegal material, but ordered an investigation to see whether it was technically possible to create and install such filter software. A few weeks ago, the judge ordered Scarlet to install these filters by the end of this year, as it was found possible to use them.
Yesterday, as was expected, SABAM wrote a letter to Belgacom and Telenet, ordering them to also install filters within 8 days, if not, they would be sued too. Belgacom said in a statement that they are investigating the letter. 'However', they added, 'we agree that copyright infringements are not right, but we will not take measures that will interfere with our customers' privacy.'
ISPA, the association of ISPs, also made a public statement on the case. Wim Roggeman of ISPA explains: 'Filtering is very expensive and it's not efficient. Customers will be able to get round it without any problems. We act as a transport system and will not play police officer to check what goes over our network.' As we understand, it's the customer that will again have to pay for this filter. Mind you that Belgium already has the most expensive fees for internet: a standard subscription with 10 GB costs $45 - 50 a month!
Meanwhile, SABAM is satisfied with the court order as can be read here. They hope that what happened in Belgium will be an example for other countries.
I do believe people at SABAM are very naive. Filters will NOT hold anyone back, apart from the few users that still download some music via Limewire and others.