A draft global copyright treaty released today could change the way Australian internet providers deal with pirates on their networks.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) draft, which took over two years of negotiation, has sparked fears of exposure to legal action in the internet industry.

The United States, the European Union and Australia have been instrumental in the draft's completion, which could form the basis of a global intellectual property treaty affecting the way internet providers do business.

It sets out greater responsibilities on the part of intermediaries to provide copyright protection for all kinds of intellectual property.

The Internet Industry Association's chief executive, Peter Coroneos, says it's another step towards defining actionable copyright offences.

"We're seeing a continued push for an expansion of enforcement measures to be taken against both individuals, and potentially also against intermediaries, for copyright infringement or at least alleged copyright infringement occurring over the internet," he said.

Mr Coroneos says the agreement could subject internet service providers (ISPs) to legal action.

"The worst case scenario is that it could impose effectively an unmanageable legal risk on intermediaries, so that by virtue of the fact they're making services available, their users may be doing the wrong thing [and that] puts them in a position where they're not able to contain their own liability," he said.

"This treaty is essentially forcing governments to strengthen existing laws to hold intermediaries themselves liable."

Entertainment industry dream

Telecommunications and business law specialist Adrian McCullagh says it may be good news for the film and music industry.

"If it does get up as a convention, [it] will put an added pressure onto ISPs," he said.

"It also gives some extra ammunition to the movie industry, the record industry and the gaming industry to combat piracy."

In February the Federal Court found that ISP provider iiNet could not be held responsible for the copyright infringement carried out by its customers.

The decision is currently the subject of appeal and Mr Coroneos says the principles set out in the ACTA draft could override it.

"What the ACTA treaty seems to be doing is moving the goalposts a little bit here to create potentially a new head of liability for intermediaries themselves, by virtue of the activities of their customers," he said.

But while a host of countries have been involved in the secret negotiations, two notable exceptions offer the world's biggest markets - India and China.

"This agreement has been negotiated largely by countries that are already copyright-respecting nations and respect intellectual property rights and have good, strong, enforceable laws in place," Mr Coroneos said.

"So we wonder what the reasoning is in creating a new international standard without the involvement of nations where copyright infringement really is a problem.

"Some people have speculated that really this is designed to create some critical mass to then enforce non-participating nations to sign up to an agreement that has already been concluded."