London - U.K. recorded music sales were down 3.2% in 2008 to 138.1 million units, a fall that was cushioned by a 0.9% sales rise in the fourth quarter, Billboard reported, citing data

London - Following a year-long investigation into the workings of OiNK, a BitTorrent tracker site shut down by U.K. and Dutch authorities, four of the people arrested for sharing music on the service have been charged with copyright infringement, allegedly for uploading a single CD, TorrentFreak reported.

London - Six British Internet service providers have signed on to a voluntary code of conduct -- in the face of looming legislation -- that will see them send hundreds of thousands of letters to suspected illegal file-swappers and work with music and other rights holders "towards a significant reduction in illegal filesharing." U.K. ISPs Virgin Media, BSkyB, Carphone Warehouse, BT, Orange and Tiscali are party to the agreement, which came after negotiations facilitated by the U.K.'s Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), and also includes record label trade group the BPI, and the Motion Picture Association of America.

London - U.K. record company revenues outside direct sales of music -- such as licensing, and other areas outside the recording copyright -- increased by 13.8% to $242 million in 2007, and now account for 11.4% of their domestic income, according to a report from the BPI, a record label trade group. The report noted that income from new digital business models -- such as on-demand Web and mobile streaming -- grew by 55.7% in 2007.

London - The British Phonographic Institute (BPI), a record label trade group, announced on Friday that it has partnered with U.K. broadband provider Virgin Media on a public anti-piracy campaign. Customers whose accounts appear to have been used to illegally distribute music will receive "informative letters" from both Virgin and BPI. While BPI investigators will identify IP addresses of suspected infringers, Virgin will deliver both letters -- without disclosing subscribers' identities to BPI. BPI estimates over 6.5 million U.K. broadband accounts are used to illegally download music.

London - Police in Britain have recently arrested six users of the OiNK BitTorrent-based file-sharing service, who are believed to have engaged in sharing pre-release albums, TorrentFreak reported. The individuals -- five men ages 19 to 33 and one 28-year-old woman -- were arrested on suspicion of "conspiracy to defraud the music industry," sources told TorrentFreak.

London - The British government has threatened to enact legislation that would compel Internet service providers in the country to take actions to curb illegal file-sharing, if ISPs and entertainment industry interests cannot come up with voluntary policies by April 2009. "The prospect of legislation to ensure ISPs deal with illegal filesharing, and the proposals to beef up IP enforcement show that the government fully understands the importance of copyright to creators," said Geoff Taylor, CEO of the British Phonographic Institute (BPI), a record label trade group.

London - The U.K. record industry trade group (BPI) has called on Internet service providers in the country to adopt anti-piracy strategies similar to those recently taken in France, where they are now required to shut off access to those who use file-sharing networks to acquire copyrighted content, and the U.K. government is set to propose legislation to that effect, according to reports. "We simply want ISPs to advise customers if their account is being used to distribute music illegally, and then, if the advice is ignored, enforce their own terms and conditions about abuse of the account," said BPI CEO Geoff Taylor, adding that illegal downloading "costs the music business hundreds of millions of pounds a year."

London - U.K. digital music sales during the week of Christmas nearly doubled from the previous year, to just under three million, while total download sales for 2007 topped 77 million, a 50% increase from 2006, according to data provided by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) trade group.

London - Musicians and record labels can now obtain unique bar codes to track sales of their works, through a collaboration announced this week between barcode provider GS1, the British Phonographic Institute and Association of Independent Music (AIM). Global Trade Identification Numbers (GTIN) will be available for an annual fee of about $50.

London - U.K. police have shut down a website that sold vouchers to purchase digital music from the rogue Russian site AllofMP3.com, which recently lost the support of major credit card companies and online payment processors such as PayPal.