P2P pact throws industry a lifeline.

BPI's deal with leading ISPs aims to provide legal alternatives to filesharing and clamp down on music piracy

A raft of legal, commercial music services offered by the UK's biggest internet companies could be on the market within months following a groundbreaking deal between the BPI and six of the UK's biggest internet companies.

The building blocks towards creating a plethora of legal services were put in place with the publication last week of the Government's long- awaited consultation on illegal file-sharing legislation.

The most striking development in the long-delayed report is a five- point memorandum of understanding (MoU) which the BPI has struck with the Government and six internet service providers - BT, BSkyB, Carphone Warehouse, Virgin Media, Tiscali and Orange - which collectively account for around 90% of the UK's internet traffic.

The voluntary agreement's key objective is to "achieve within two to three years a significant reduction in the incidence of copyright infringement as a result of P2P filesharing".

It will achieve this through a variety of measures, including ISPs sending warning letters to customers whose accounts have been identified by the BPI as being used illegally.

With Universal linking with Sky to launch a new digital subscription service, which looks likely to be bundled with its broadband subscription (see page 3), BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor says there are already other conversations taking place and he is "very hopeful" that over the coming months progress can be made on further deals.