An Irish ISP has decided that it will introduce the 'three strikes' rule and cut off customers who the music and film industry claim are P2P pirates. Eircom which his one of the biggest broadband providers in Ireland will begin a process that will lead to cutting off the broadband service of customers found to be repeatedly sharing music online illegally.

Ireland is the first country in the world where a system of graduated response is being put in place. The plan is that Eircom customers who illegally share copyrighted music will get three warnings before having their broadband service cut off for a year. As yet the method that it will use to identify file shares is unclear.

The Data Protection Commissioner recently appealed to the courts not to accept IP addresses as 'personal information'. If that comment is recognised by the Irish courts then it will have problems identifying who is filesharing.

The Irish Recorded Music Association (Irma), whose members include EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner, recently reached an out-of-court settlement with Eircom in February 2009 under which the telecoms company agreed to introduce such a system for its 750,000 broadband users. This meant that it would not be sued into a coma by big content.