ISPs ordered to ID file sharers

A UK court, according to the Regsiter, has ordered 5 ISPs to hand over, to the British Phographic Industry, the personal details of 33 customers suspected of engaging in copyright infringement on P2P networks.

Don't place too much credence in the "research" that suggests P2P users would have spent £654m more on music CDs if they had not been downloading. It is currently impossible to tell what proportion of illegal downloads have led to the undermining of a possible purchase. There is a lot of alternative evidence that suggests music sampling on P2P networks has led to an increase in music CD sales. There is just not enough empirical evidence of the complex underlying patterns but there is no direct overall proven single causal link between use of P2P networks and a decrease in CD sales, no matter how intuitive the drawing of such a link might feel.