Paul McGuinness, U2’s manager, has asked the Irish Government to consider coming up with some legislation that will prevent Irish people from illegally downloading music on the Internet.

McGuinness said that Ireland has one of the worst reputations for downloading music and videos illegally without any consequences.

McGuinness said it’s time the Irish government did something about it in order to protect artists’ creations.

Said McGuinness,  "This is extremely bad for the international reputation of Ireland as a jurisdiction with appropriate legal protection for all kinds of intellectual property and copyright generally.”

On Monday in Ireland Justice Peter Charleton said he found a moral, but no legal, reason to prevent internet users from sharing documents online.

McGuinness was not pleased with the High Court ruling.

The U2 manager added: "Though the court ruling is clearly a major blow to therecorded music industry and the movie industry, there are many other Irish basedbusinesses and industries threatened nowadays by copyright theft and the Government must as a matter of urgency, do its job properly and implement the required EU legislation without further delay.

This week bosses from major record labels will meet to sign off on plans to make a push for reform of copyright law. They will do so in following EU directives.

IRMA chairman, Willie Kavanagh said he hopes that something will come into play early next year.

"We have been approached by members of government asking what they can do to help because this does not appear correct to them," Mr Kavanagh said.

"We are not looking to have this backdated; we just want this thing sorted."