They want them to adopt a "three strikes and you're out" system, whereby customers who infringe copyright are disconnected after three complaints. All local ISPs except one, Exetel, have rejected the demands, saying they should not be required to police their users and that there are already adequate procedures and remedies available to copyright holders through the courts. The music industry is frustrated because it believes other ISPs are waiting for BigPond to jump onboard before adopting the scheme. It has indicated it may start suing local ISPs as a last resort.

In Ireland, the four major record labels - EMI, Sony BMG, Universal Music and Warner Music - brought a High Court action against the ISP Eircom, claiming it must bear some liability for its networks being used for illegal downloading "on a grand scale". The case was initiated last March and Justice Peter Kelly said this week he expected the hearing would officially commence in July. The labels want Eircom to adopt filtering technology to prevent customers downloading music illegally. Eircom argues that doing this will have a detrimental effect on its service and that it does not have a legal obligation to monitor traffic on its network.

In a similar case in July last year, a court in Belgium ruled that a local ISP, Scarlet, must investigate solutions to filter out infringing peer-to-peer content on its network. And a 2006 Supreme Court ruling in Denmark obliged the telco TDC to act immediately when notified of a customer using their internet account to infringe copyright. If the telco didn't comply, copyright owners could seek a court injunction against it.

Another Danish ruling in February this year forced the ISP DMT2 to block customers from accessing the popular BitTorrent file-sharing site The Pirate Bay. In Australia, record labels successfully sued the ISP Comcen in 2004 for hosting an illegal music download site. They also won a similar case in 2005 against Swiftel, which hosted BitTorrent websites. While it is rare to find an Australian ISP hosting an illegal download site today - most are hosted in countries with relaxed copyright laws such as Sweden - the music industry is now targeting internet providers simply because customers can use their pipes to access pirated content.

"Quite frankly we'd be gobsmacked if they tried it on [here]," BigPond spokesman Craig Middleton said. "The music industry has ample remedies under the Copyright Act to take action against infringers. We are a mere conduit and are protected as such under the Copyright Act. We are all in favour of cooperating with the music industry using the existing provisions established under law."

While legal music downloads are on the rise, this has not been enough to offset falls in CD sales, which the music industry blames on piracy. It also believes ISPs are responsible for ensuring their users do not use their internet services for illegal activities. But while the three strikes and you're out system has gathered steam overseas recently - with Japan's four major ISPs and France agreeing to adopt it and the British Government indicating it could force its ISPs to follow suit - it was dealt a bitter blow by the European Parliament this month. A narrow vote by European MPs resolved to reject the three strikes system, which a Swedish MP and the former Prime Minister of France, Michel Rocard, said would "[conflict] with civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness, such as the interruption of internet access".

But the vote is not legally binding and France could push for the system to be adopted throughout Europe when it takes over the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union in the second half of this year.