Heartland

"Under Britain's existing legislation," explains Robertson, "it infringes copyright to convert a song from a CD into MP3 format, or even just to copy a CD to cassette to play in your car. There is a widespread misconception that this is legal in the UK. It's not. It is legal in many other countries – the US, France and Germany, for example. But Britain has long resisted giving individuals a 'private use' exception in its copyright laws."

So the British music industry could sue those who make and swap MP3 files using services like KaZaA. But the British Phonographic Industry has to date taken a more understanding approach than its US counterpart, having taken into account the paucity of legitimate music download services to date.