According to iiNet, it is.
It would appear from documents obtained by ZDnet and, perhaps, the Fairfax press, that it is certainly one of the “options” being developed by the Attorney-General’s Department.
The Attorney-General did say back in February that he was looking at a number of ways to combat online piracy in light of the High Court’s decision in the iiNet case. Presumably, the development of the various options has progressed somewhat by now although, so far as I am aware, it is not something that has been thrown open to public comment.
The ZDnet article refers to the positive experience apparently experienced with the scheme in the USA. The Fairfax article notes Rebecca Giblins’ research indicating the costs of such schemes appear to be all out of proportion to their impact.
It would be a pity if the development of all these options means that we are not going to get the “through and exhaustive exercise in law reform” so that the Copyright Act will be shorter, simpler and easier to use and understand that the Attorney did foreshadow in February.
Meanwhile, in the UK, a Minister assisting with IP matters has raised the prospect of search engines being required to exclude from search results, or at least the first page of the results, web-sites against which blocking orders have been obtained.
