Ireland is soon to have a law similar to SOPA passed that would give music and movie companies the power to force Irish ISPs to block access to sites suspected of having copyright infringing material on them.

Irish citizens won't have a chance to lobby their democratic representatives because there won't be a vote on the law — snappily named "S.I. No. of 2011 European Communities (Copyright and Related Rights) Regulations 2011" — in the Irish Parliament. Instead the law is being enacted by ministerial order because it is being prepared in the form of a Statutory Instrument.

The law could mean that judges can order Irish ISPs — such as Eircom and UPC — as well as mobile networks to block access to social networking sites where an individual user has shared infringing material.

The legislation was prepared in response to a court decision that ruled that although the rights of EMI were being breached by internet providers letting its copyrighted works be shared for free, the law didn't have any way of addressing the situation — something that European law requires. It was hoped that the legislation might appease rights holders, but that hasn't stopped the record label from filing a lawsuit against the Irish government for failing to clamp down on music piracy.

An early draft of the law said that the copyright holder can apply to the high court for an injunction against the person who provides the facilities that are used by third parties to infringe their copyright.

If they are deemed to be infringing copyright, the Irish courts will be able to issue an injunction against ISPs and other companies that provide the facilities that might be used to infringe copyright — this could mean social networks such as Facebook and YouTube or video hosting sites and forums.

The wording of the early draft of the law is a little vague, but T. J. McIntyre, an Irish legal expert and lecturer, believes the potential penalties could be extreme.

He says in a blog post: "At a minimum this will probably allow courts to require ISPs to block access to alleged infringing sites (such as the Pirate Bay). Over and above that it becomes impossible to say – the language is so vague it might, for example, allow a court to require an ISP to introduce a three strikes system or to block certain ports. However, once copyright plaintiffs get hold of this power you can expect it to be pushed to its absolute limit."

Websites deemed to be hosting the infringing content may not even be given notice that they are going to be blocked. This happened in a case in 2009 where Eircom was ordered to block The Pirate Bay.

This sort of approach to legislation could make it harder for Ireland to attract digital businesses. This could prove particularly problematic given that Ireland is trying to position itself as a hub for cloud computing.

For more information about the piece of legislation, visit StopSopaIreland.com.

And hat tip to Mic Wright for putting this topic on our radar!

This post first appeared on wired.co.uk.