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Speaking at the European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association conference, John Kennedy, CEO of the IFPI, asked ISPs to agree to a code of conduct that would see them actively seek to help the music industry eliminate sharing.

The code, he said, should include agreeing to ask the record industry to let them know when illegal sharing is taking place, confirming or implementing terms and conditions that prohibit unauthorised P2P activity and agreeing to enforce such terms.

'As an industry we ask you to help us build a bigger and better market for our legitimate, authorised professionally created content,' Kennedy said, 'and that in turn will mean a bigger and better market for your commercial

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broadband services.'

Earlier Kennedy said that in Europe, within the space of 12 months, legitimate digital music had gone from a niche market to the mainstream of consumer life, with 2004 seeing 10 times the number of downloads that there were in 2003.

'These figures are astonishing given that legal music service providers have had to compete against free peer-to-peer file sharing,' he said. 'what other business has to break into a 100 per cent pirate market?'

Kennedy defended the legal action taken in the UK, US and elsewhere against alleged file sharers.

'We have used litigation repsonsibly, effectively and alongside tireless education information campaigns,' he said. 'When you take into account the extent to which we waited and educated before taking action, you could say that we are the nicest litigators in the world.'

He also dismissed criticism that download prices are too high.

'Music is great value,' he argued. 'You wouldn't always believe it because many commentators complain about the price of music. But in the online world you can buy a piece of music, a true origial work of art, for 99 cents and it is yours to own forever. A song for life for less than a can of coke, a loaf of bread, a bottle of water, a cup of coffee or a bus fare.'