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The agreement is signed by the six major Internet Service Providers (ISPs), the music and film rights-holders and government. The six ISPs are Virgin Media, Sky, Carphone Warehouse, BT, Orange and Tiscali.

This is a world-first solution aiming to provide consumers with content in the way they wish to use it, encouraging new uses of technology and protecting Britain's world leading creative industries.

The agreement is central to the government's preferred industry-led approach, outlined in a consultation document released today on legislative options to address unlawful file sharing online.

The approach involves the signatories working together to:

• engage with and educate users about unlawful file sharing
• make material legally available online in a wide range of user-friendly formats
• create a self-regulatory environment, with the involvement of Ofcom, including informing consumers of the illegality of file sharing and pointing to alternative legal methods available.

Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Andy Burnham said: "It's a great thing that new technology lets young people today explore popular culture in a way my generation simply could not. But this freedom cannot extend to allowing people to think they can access content for free. We expect Britain to produce the best bands and films in the world. But that will only happen if we find new ways of rewarding our creative talent and investing in new names.

"Britain's creative industries have grown quickly in the last 10 years and will play a bigger role in our future. Their success is critically underpinned by workable systems of copyright and that is why the issues we are discussing today go to the heart of our economy."

The process will work by rights holders identifying material available on file-sharing websites which they believe breaches copyright. It is possible for the rights holders to identify the IP address of users downloading that material. Rights holders would then alert ISPs who can isolate the details of the user's account of that IP address and send a letter. The letter informs the customers that their account has been used to share copyrighted material without permission and points customers towards legal alternatives. At no stage is a consumer's personal web browsing monitored.

ISPs and rights holders will produce a Code of Practice together on how they will deal with alleged repeat infringers. Government will consult to give this Code legislative underpinning.

Further information

The consultation document is available on the BERR website.

• BERR consultations Opens new window