Telenor said it saw “no legal basis” for the demand for ISPs to control or assess the content that users download.

“At the same time, Telenor does not condone pirating of material and illegal file sharing,” Telenor said in the statement.

“We comply with all relevant laws and regulations and can see no legal basis for any ISP to act in the interests of digital intellectual property rights holders by blocking individual websites,” Ragnar Kaarhus, head of Telenor Norway, said in the statement.

In February, a Danish court ordered Telenor’s Denmark-based ISP Tele2 to shut its customers’ access to Pirate Bay.

Lawyers for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, the Norwegian videogram association Norsk Videogramforening and the Norwegian Film Distributors Association have demanded Telenor block access in Norway, Telenor said.

I was rather disappointed when Denmark caved, but glad Norway didn’t (or at least hasn’t yet). Sweden…well, we’re all watching! I don’t really care so much about the “practical aspects” of having access blocked–for every security measure imposed, there’s someone clever enough to find a way around it–but I do care about an Internet for adults that has the equivalent of a court-imposed Net Nanny. It’s very much a slippery slope argument. First, it’s the torrents and the CP, then it’s the hardcore porn, then it’s sites the government considers “subversive”, and eventually, we have the equivalent of cable TV–you see what they tell you to see. They’re already doing filtering trials with a few small ISPs in Australia, and if that works, and Australia gets away with it…