Could 2008 be the year when ISPs are forced to get tough over illegal online distribution of media content? The upshot of this indecipherable Times story is that they will, in January, enter negotiations with movie distributors who have suggested ISPs suspend service to customers found downloading illegally. Those discussions, which aren’t detailed in the story, are framed by the culture select committee’s 2006/07 report on new media and the creative industries, which acknowledged: “It may be impractical for such businesses to be made legally liable for providing access to certain material, but we believe strongly that the industry should do more to discourage piracy.”

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Until now, ISPs had operated only an implied blocking policy against the most active file sharers - capping bandwidth - but that move has had business rather than legal motivations (ensuring the networks runs efficiently). France’s proposed three-strikes-and-out policy - which sees ISPs agree to monitor their heaviest users’ traffic for illegal activity and was proposed by the chair of entertainment retailer Fnac - may change all that. Such filtering is also one proposal currently being considered by Europe generally, and paidContent:UK understands the music industry is currently lobbying UK ISPs to deploy the same method, believing it is making headway with the proposal. Such moves are likely to find considerably opposition in digital liberties circles; proponents will need to demonstrate that, despite surging digital content sales growth, they could be shifting many more units if it wasn’t for those pesky pirates.