Warner Music, Universal Music Group, Sony BMG and EMI have thrown light on the sorry state of music piracy and have dragged the case against UPC, one of Ireland's largest broadband providers, in order to establish a legal precedent that would push the internet service providers to cut off illegal file sharers' internet connections.

However, the Irish high court has no laws exist which identifies and cut the operations done via internet users, hinting the country is not in sync with European copyright law.

The record firms are opting to push the internet service providers towards the "three strikes rule", forcing the accused three times of sharing copyrighted material to be disconnected forever from internet.

The court claims that a "substantial portion" of UPC's 150,000 users make use of illegal paths to share music.

Justice Peter Charleton said, "This not only undermines their [the creative industries] business but ruins the ability of a generation of creative people in Ireland, and elsewhere, to establish a viable living," said Charleton. "It is destructive of an important native industry."

Meanwhile the case is being looked over by various other internet service providers in the country as the music industry is pushing to punish the illegal users.