In 2006, a French proposal similar to the one being discussed on the Isle of Man made it to Parliament, but it was rejected after fierce lobbying from copyright owners. The government later threw its weight behind a new approach: requiring Internet service providers to disconnect persistent pirates.

Image John Kennedy, head of a trade group, calls the proposal unfair to broadband users who do not download music.

That plan is still wending its way through the legislature, but it has drawn interest elsewhere, including in Britain. (While the Isle of Man shares a head of state with the United Kingdom  the queen  it has its own parliament and makes its own laws.) There, policy makers are dangling the threat of a system like France’s plan to disconnect pirates, to try to get Internet providers and the music companies to agree on ways to stimulate the development of legitimate digital music sales and to curb piracy.

While the Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the major labels in the United States, has backed away from a nearly six-year campaign of litigation against individual file-sharers, the music companies’ continuing effort to battle piracy in other ways dismays some analysts.

“They spend 90 percent of their time trying to keep me from doing what I want to do and 10 percent of their time trying to make it possible,” said Gerd Leonhard, author of “The Future of Music.”

Actually, the major music companies  Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI  have grown considerably more flexible in recent months, making their music available in ways they might once have considered unthinkable.

New services offering “free” music, bundled into the cost of a broadband subscription or financed by advertising, are proliferating. “On the drawing board, these are very virtuous models, but it’s all about getting the right implementation,” said Michael Nash, executive vice president for digital strategy and business development at Warner Music. “You don’t want to completely displace all your existing consumers and end up with a lower-value model.”