Norway's Ministry of Culture has just proposed legislative changes designed to further crack down on illicit file-sharing. In addition to smoothing the way for Internet users to be monitored more easily by rightsholders, amendments have been tabled which would order file-sharing sites to be blocked at the ISP level. Top of the list, The Pirate Bay.

The spread of anti-filesharing measures across the United States and Europe appears to be accelerating at a somewhat dizzying pace. On an almost daily basis during the last few months stories about controversial and sometimes draconian measures to deal with online infringement have hit the headlines.

Say what you like about the big movie and music studios – they certainly know how to coordinate their lobbying to perfection. Timing like this, with legislation being mulled in many major markets simultaneously, sends a powerful message.

Adding to a growing list, Norway is the latest country to propose tough legislative amendments in favor of rightsholders.

“The Ministry of Culture today sends for comment on a proposal for amendments to the Copyright Act. With this we will give licensees the tools they need to follow-up on copyright infringement on the Internet, while protecting privacy,” said Culture Minister Anniken Huitfeldt.

The main proposals come in two parts – making it easier for rightsholders to identify infringers from their IP addresses and, unsurprisingly, the wholesale ISP-level blocking of sites deemed to be infringing copyright on a large scale.

In order to monitor and collect IP address-based evidence on alleged file-sharers, currently Norway requires companies to be licensed by the Datatilsynet, the country’s data protection office. The new amendments propose that this safeguard be relaxed. Monitoring companies will still have to register, but won’t need a license to operate.

The process for rightsholders to extract personally identifying information from ISPs based on IP address evidence will also be streamlined.

“The rules for how licensees should be able to obtain information about who is behind an IP address used for illegal file sharing, is proposed to be simplified and clarified,” said Culture Minister Anniken Huitfeldt.

“Before making a decision about any identification made by the court, the Post and Telecommunications Authority may make a statement about whether ISPs should be released from confidentiality [obligations].”

The second amendment, and certainly the most controversial, is file-sharing site domain blocking as already suggested by the PROTECT IP bill in the United States and Digital Economy Act in the UK.

“While freedom of speech today will be maintained, it will open for the blocking of sites that clearly and in large-scale make available content in violation of copyright,” said Huitfeldt, who later confirmed during a press conference this would include The Pirate Bay.

The Minister said that any blockage orders would be imposed on Internet service providers after initially going through one of the two models suggested in the consultation paper.

The first would empower the country’s Media Authority to authorize blocks, backed up by a complaints appeals board. The second would see the courts given authority to issue blocks under an amended Copyright Act.

Together, IFPI and music rights group TONO spent a year unsuccessfully pursuing the ISP Telenor in an attempt to force it to block subscriber access to The Pirate Bay. Eventually the pair conceded that there was “no legal authority under Norwegian law for such blocking requirements.”

In a comment they described the proposals from the Ministry of Culture as “a good start.”

It is expected that should the proposals be approved by their September 30th deadline, the bill will be adopted in 2012.