The UK’s Digital Economy Bill, announced last year, has already seen controversy over a proposed tax levy on internet connections; a clause which will give the First Secretary of State (currently Peter Mandelson) the right to change the bill at any time of choosing; as well as possible amendments to ensure immunity for search engines from UK infringement laws.

‘Well I hate bloody YouTube, what about you old boy?’… It’s looking like it may be some time before the Digital Economy Bill gets the go ahead.

Now, the long and winding road towards getting the whole thing passed has taken another turn for the odd as the Liberal Democrats are reported to be “actively pursuing a change to the Digital Economy Bill which would see sites which host copyrighted material illegally blocked in the UK”.

As TechRadar points out, “This amendment could well have severe implications for those who use the internet in Britain and may target well-known video-sharing sites such as YouTube.” The two Lib Dem lords in question – Lord Razzall and Lord Clement-Jones – are currently pressing for the addition of  the ‘preventing access to specified online locations’ clause in the final bill

The crux of the clause is as follows: “The High Court (in Scotland, the Court of Session) shall have power to grant an injunction against a service provider, requiring it to prevent access to online locations specified in the order of the Court.”

The proposed clause continues by saying that in determining whether to grant an injunction the court shall have regard to, “whether a substantial proportion of the content accessible at or via each specified online location infringes copyright.” As TechRadar notes, a lot will hinge on what exactly is a “substantial proportion” of copyright infringement.

At the moment, there is little to no web filtering happening in the UK (in Ireland there’s none at all and watch out for a piece we’re doing with the UCD Centre for Cybercrime Investigation later in the week for more details on that matter).  Indeed, if this law were to pass, some fear UK could very well see themselves in a situation like China where the reasons for blocking certain sites are more than a bit skewed. While, as we reported a few weeks back, Australia is another country looking into possible net filtering.

Watch the space, there’s bound to be more chopping and changing on this Bill before it passes, especially with a general election on the horizon this May.