Ireland's SOPA scuppered by a European Court ruling?

Europe has finally begun to show some cop on in the whole anti-piracy move and ruled that social networks cannot be forced to censor content.

The ruling was given after a Belgian music management company tried to get the European Court of Justice to force a social networking website to stop letting users post copyrighted music.

SABAM wanted the site, Netlog, to filter content posted by users and block anything from their catalogue that hasn't been paid for. The music company also wanted to impose daily fines on the site until it complied.

The ruling found that the filters necessary to block such content would require active observation of users, a move which would breach the EU's eCommerce Directive.

The result essentially means that social networking sites would be indemnified from the Government's proposed anti-piracy legislation. Minister Sherlock has already said that his statutory instrument will not affect high profile names like Facebook and Twitter.

With the international anti-piracy agreement, ACTA, beginning to stumble, this could be a warning sign for European leaders considering their own legislation. Bulgaria, Poland and the Czech Republic have already said they're not going to sign and Germany has delayed the process in order to mull it over.