A federal parliamentary committee says proposed legislation to force ISPs to block sites like The Pirate Bay could limit freedom of expression.

The Australian Government has introduced legislation to allow rights-holders to force telcos to block specific overseas piracy websites for Australian users.

The rights-holders would only to demonstrate that the website primarily allows the infringement of copyright, and they could have the Federal Court order an ISP to block it.

Tech companies – Google in particular – say there are much smarter ways to discourage piracy than heavy-handed site-blocking. 

A report handed down by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights last week said that the ham-fisted legislation could see sites blocked despite their for legitimate purposes.

The committee found it would be a breach of the right to freedom of opinion.

Australia does not have a Bill of Rights, but tends to adhere to the freedom of opinion and expression protections in article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the committee stated.

“While a website may have disproportionately high infringement of copyright materials, preventing users who are legally sharing or distributing files from accessing these websites, and preventing the general public from accessing such lawful material, could potentially limit their enjoyment of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and their right to receive information,” the report said.

The group said injunctions to block websites could lead to smaller content producers - which use torrenting as a legitimate avenue – could have content blocked in Australia.

It also found that the government cannot demonstrate that blocking sites is a proportional response to online copyright infringement.

The committee called on the Attorney-General's Department to explain whether such a heavy limit on the right to freedom of expression is proportionate.

A separate Senate committee will now report on May 29, after being granted an extension.

Australian Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson told the Senate committee earlier this month that preventing copyright infringement is “consistent with advancing human rights”, because property rights “are human rights”.

But, Wilson said, without a proper fair use exception in Australian copyright law, the proposed legislation could “unreasonably restrict freedom of expression”.

The Attorney-General's Department revealed an estimated cost of $AU130,000 per year for ISPs to block infringing sites, based on an average of 10 injunctions per year for the major ISPs.