How the anti-piracy measures included in its Digital Economy Bill could work in practice.

The industry body’s commissioned its own research into the costs of the Digital Economy Bill’s copyright clauses.

The Digital Economy Bill has been having its first “line by line examination” in Parliament this week.

A new poll’s revealed more money is being spent on legal downloads by illicit file-sharers than law-abiding folk. According to the Digital Music Survey, fifteen per cent of the British population uses peer-to-peer software – and nine per cent will even admit to doing so in order to obtain copyrighted material they haven’t paid for. At the same time, it’s been shown that shutting down a major P2P site may only lead to a boom in alternatives as file-swappers try to fill the vacuum.

A new BitTorrent program could be good for consumers and even, for a change, internet service providers. The news comes as UK ISP Entanet prepares to implement traffic-shaping measures – citing the heavy demand put on its network by peer-to-peer file-sharers as one of the reasons.

After BT made the claim that getting tough on Internet piracy would cost around £1 million per day, the body representing the music industry has launched a counter-offensive. BPI boss Geoff Taylor says broadband companies have seen their revenues rising while those of the record business have gone the opposite way because of piracy – and that the ISP’s stance is “just about protecting profits.”

Football is big business, with domestic rights alone to broadcasting Premier League matches worth around £1 billion per year. Illegal Internet coverage is seen as a threat that could undermine that bonanza – and representatives of England’s top division are working to make sure that, when football’s coming to your home, it doesn’t do so in the wrong way.

A new advertising campaign’s being launched to try and deal with what’s being called “Generation Y-pay,” using soft sell tactics and avoiding the sensationalism of previous attempts. At the same time, it’s emerged that a UK law firm is finally preparing to file its first court cases against online piracy – after sending out hundreds of letters warning alleged file-sharers it would do just that.