Decision Will Frighten Illegal Downloaders says IRMA Boss

"There is no doubt that it sends out a very strong signal," Doyle added. "The fact that it was a Swedish judge who made the decision is very impressive. They do not send people to prison lightly there, so it wasn't necessarily anticipated."

The aspect of the decision with the widest ramifications is that it comprehensively dismissed the defence set out by Pirate Bay that they were not hosting the illegally downloaded material, and therefore that they could not be held accountable.

"The judge decided that they were guilty on the basis that they knowingly made it possible for people to upload and download and therefore that they were aiding and abetting people in committing a crime," Doyle said.

The same, the IRMA CEO pointed out, could be said of many other sites, including for example blogger host sites on which individual bloggers post MP3s illegally. "It must frighten them," the CEO added. "Pirate Bay were the worst offenders. They have over 20 million users, who have been involved in illegally swapping and downloading music, movie, software, games – which is frightening. Denmark succeeded in having it blocked. The hope now is that other countries will follow. But there is certainly a precedent there – and it can be used against other sites involved in facilitation.

"In the case we took against Eircom," he added, "part of the agreement we reached was that they would block Pirate Bay, so that's a reflection of how concerned we were."

Further moves on the issue of illegal downloading are likely in Ireland over the next few weeks. Here, Doyle insisted, peer-to-peer file-sharing is the biggest bugbear for producers of music.

"We only just concluded our agreement with Eircom as to how the graduated approach we settled on with them would work," Doyle explained. "There were various technical and legal issues to be considered but now that we have put the finishing touches to that 'three strikes and you're out' approach, we have written to the other ISPs, with the aim of setting up meetings. We will be pressing for them to initiate an Eircom type agreement with us.

"The trial of the operators of the Pirate Bay was about defending the rights of creators, confirming the illegality of the service and creating a fair environment for legal music services that respects the rights of the creative community," he said. "We'll be continuing to pursue that objective in Ireland very vigorously."