Internet service providers and search engines must take responsibility for online piracy, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said as he unveiled new proposals for cracking down on websites breaking copyright laws.
In a speech to the Royal Television Society on Wednesday evening, he said swifter court processes to deal with pirated music and counterfeit goods should be put in place.
"Unlawfully distributing copyrighted material is theft – and a direct assault on the freedoms and rights of creators of content to be rewarded fairly for their efforts," he said.
He said the government would look at installing a "cross-industry body", potentially modelled on the Internet Watch Foundation, which reports online child sex abuse content, that could identify websites breaking the law.
In addition a "streamlined legal process to make it possible for the courts to act quickly" and greater responsibility on advertisers to remove their content from offending sites would also be introduced.
Credit card companies and banks to remove would also bear the burden for removing their services from such sites under his proposals.
He said a voluntary code of conduct to guide could be created to keep the law, but refused to rule out legislation as an option.
Adam Webb, UK Music's head of communications said a voluntary agreement could help growth in the online music industry.
"If the objective is to push people to the licensed music arena, and promote growth in online music, then this can only be a good thing. There are 80 licensed music services in the UK, and that's not including labels and artists selling directly from their sites. this cannot be a one-sided agreement, punishment alone will not work."
Webb believes ISPs won't lose out in the agreement. "This has got to be positive for ISPs. Growth in the legal music market will benefit them and search engines. Just look at bundling. The more money goes to legal music, the more artists can create, making more content for the search engines."
Graham McWilliam, Group Director of Corporate Affairs, BSkyB, said the company fully supports the government's proposed measures: "Content creators and distributors, of which Sky is both, must now work together to seize the opportunity to protect UK content and creativity. It's only by taking effective, cross-industry action that we can safeguard the long-term interests of consumers."
A Google spokesperson said the company already has "industry-leading measures to fight online piracy".
"We work hand-in-hand with copyright owners to remove infringing material from search results. Without a court order, any copyright owner can already use our removals process to inform us of copyright infringing content and have it removed from Google Search."
Google search results for music prioritise results with music rich snippets, it has 35,000 book publishing partnership agreements through Google Books and eBooks where readers can scan 20% of a title before buying. In the US they have launched YouTube movie rentals which steers customers towards legal film downloads.
Hunt's proposal to shift onus of rights management to ISPs and search engines is a direct reversal of the current model of the internet and will affect every website which allows content to be uploaded.
The PR spin leading up to Hunt's speech was well outlined by the Guardian, including a partly "leaked" speech.