Irish ISP imposes three strikes ruling

Irish ISP Eircom will start cutting off Internet access to subscribers accused of persistent file sharing from today.

Despite legal action by the Data Protection Commissioner to prevent the move, the ISP has been forced to impose the draconian measures by the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) as part of a January 2009 court settlement.

From today IRMA will be providing the ISP with the IP addresses of alleged offenders provided by anti-piracy tracking outfit Dtecnet. The outfit will also provide details of which P2P application was used and when the alleged copyright infringement took place.

Specific details of how the 'three strikes' notices would be carried out are not available, but another similar scheme proposed by the French government suggested that offenders would receive and advisory email pointing out the error of the file sharer's ways, followed by a written warning delivered by traditional mail.

If the miscreant continues to upload or download copyrighted material, a third letter, probably delivered by registered post or the equivalent, would be the final warning before pulling the plug.

A number of other Irish ISPs have also been asked by Big Media to join the scheme, according to a story on Silicon Republic, but as they are not on the wrong end of a potentially ruinous lawsuit, they have told IRMA to bog off.