A court in Belgian is holding a local ISP responsible for the file sharing that goes on in their service. They've been given six months to install software to prevent their customers from downloading pirated music and videos. Some think this will affect other ISP's in Europe, others don't.

"ISPs have argued that they provide a service like a post office or a telephone company, and shouldn't be required to police the traffic on their networks." ~ComputerWorld (July 5)

I agree with this comment. Why should the ISP's be responsible for what every one of their customers does on the Internet. That's like holding them responsible for child abductions, murders and anything else that was started by their customers on the Internet.

On the other hand, the court also believes that the ISP's have the technology to stop music and video pirating. If they indeed do have the means, and it's not excessively expensive, then why not just install the software and be done with it.

I'm sad that the Internet has become a place of censorship where you can't share music with your friends without doing something illegal. You can lend your records to your friend in person but you can't send it to them so you can listen together.