Australian internet users face an increased risk of prosecution if they pirate online, with five large ISPs proposing to act on suspected infringement notices provided to them from rights holders by passing on the notices to users and, in the most extreme circumstances, disclosing the details of alleged pirates.

Under a proposal released by telco industry body the Communications Alliance, users will receive an "education notice"  if they are suspected of pirating content like movies. If they persist, they will be issued with up to three warning notices within a 12-month period. If a user continues to pirate content after that, they would then face the prospect of having their details passed on to copyright holders, allowing them to institute legal action.

A spokesman for federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy welcomed "the industry working towards a solution to the issue of piracy" and said the government had been "encouraging the parties to work together for some time because it is important any proposed solution is supported by both ISPs and the content industries".

The Communications Alliance claims the experience in France — which employs a three-strikes policy at the end of which persistent infringers are disconnected from the internet — shows that "only 0.1 per cent of users who receive a first notice will continue their activities and receive a third notice".

"The majority of infringers are casual infringers, not hard core," said Communications Alliance CEO John Stanton. "Once they know that their activity can be detected, and has been, we think they'll take the opportunity to change their behaviour."

ISPs will not monitor user connections but will rely on rights holders sending them notices of suspected infringements they have detected by monitoring file sharing networks for illegal uploading and downloading.

To get user details, copyright holders will need to apply for a court order, as they are required to now.

The Australian ISPs that have agreed to help in policing infringements are Telstra BigPond, Optus, iiNet, iPrimus and Internode.

The proposal, which the Communications Alliance wants trialled for an 18-month period, represents a major reversal of tactics by the ISPs in the copyright wars.

The about-face comes just days before the High Court is due to hear an appeal by The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), which represents many of the largest entertainment industry rights holders in Australia, against a Federal Court judgment in February that found telco iiNet was not responsible for copyright infringement by its clients.

But if the proposal was meant to dissuade the rights holders from pursuing their case it has failed. In a statement, AFACT said it was "focused" on the High Court appeal this week and would "not be commenting on anything but the case at this time". The group wants iiNet to be held entirely accountable for policing copyright infringements on its network.

Foxtel was unimpressed, damning the proposal as "self serving, defective and not in the spirit of our agreed approach".

ISP iiNet's chief regulatory officer Steve Dalby was blunt about the Communications Alliance plan not representing an "agreement". He said it may not come into effect if there was not enough support for it. "It's a proposal," Mr Dalby said. "There is no 'date of effect'. If there is insufficient support, it'll wither on the vine."

He said the proposal would test the claim rights holders had been promoting that about 70 per cent of people notified would stop infringing after their first or second notice.

"If 70 per cent of infringements cease, it would be a very cheap way of reducing their claimed losses of $900 million per annum. A great investment. It does have costs for ISPs, however, with no balancing benefits flowing to them."

He added that to get user details copyright holders would need to get a court order. "That hasn't changed.

"They will have to convince a Federal Court magistrate or similar that the ISP should be ordered to disclose customer details," Mr Dalby said.

Unlike the French scheme, the proposal does not provide for termination of consumers' internet accounts, nor for any punitive sanctions to be imposed on customers by ISPs. It also gives consumers the right to appeal if they receive a notice but believe they have not done anything improper.

“We believe the notice scheme can greatly reduce online copyright infringement in Australia, while protecting consumer rights, educating consumers about how to access legal online content and helping rights holders to protect their rights,” the alliance's John Stanton said.

He added that it was important for rights holders to ensure that consumers had access to "legal and affordable content" online, to "reduce the motivation to source content in ways that might be illegal".

Meanwhile, the Movie Rights Group, which emerged last month with plans to take legal action against people who had illegally downloaded the film Kill The Irishman, has gone to ground following an investigation by Fairfax that revealed the links of its owners, Gold Coast brothers Matthew and Richard Clapham, to the porn industry.

The group’s website is no longer functional, and Theresa Lloyd, of Brisbane firm Lloyds Solicitors, said: "We no longer have any association with Movie Rights Group."

Ben Grubb is on Twitter: @bengrubb

Karl Quinn is on Twitter: @karlkwin

Ben Grubb is on Facebook: /bengrubbproposing to act on suspected user infringement notices provided to them by rights holders by passing on the notices to users and, in the most extreme circumstances, disclosing the details of alleged pirates.