"Three strikes" will start striking out the Irish today. The Irish Times reports that one of the largest ISPs in the country, Eircom, has agreed to process 50 content industry complaints each week, and to disconnect users who rack up three complaints.

The move has been awaited for months. Eircom voluntarily agreed to the system after being sued by the major music labels, but had yet to implement it while it was challenged on grounds of data privacy.

But IP addresses aren't considered "private," said the Irish High Court in April, and so Eircom today becomes the only ISP in the country to adopt a graduated response system. The Irish Times says that this is the first such system in the world, though South Korea has had something similar (but mandatory) in place for some time. France has also approved such a system, but it has yet to take effect.

The system is needed, in the words of Mr. Justice Peter Charleton, because "the mischievous side of the human personality, containing a repulsive aspect as well as an attractive and humorous one, has also come to the fore over the Internet."