The U.K. record industry has announced that it has won a court order to force Internet service providers to reveal the identities of 33 suspected file sharers. Five ISPs will now have just days to turn over the details of the suspected file swappers, who the British Phonographic Industry claims have posted 72,000 music files …

As legal music downloading takes off as never before, music pirates are shunning peer-to-peer services in favor of using iPods to swap music. According to a report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the number of music downloaders using peer-to-peer networks has dropped in recent months. Currently, 21 percent of downloaders use networks such as Kazaa or Grokster …

The U.K.’s fondness for music downloads has spawned a new virtual singles chart. The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has announced it will be running a chart of the most popular U.K. downloads from Sept.1, with numbers gleaned from song-shop staples such as iTunes, Mycokemusic.com and Virgin. The chart will be compiled by the Official U.K. Chart Company (OCC) and will …

Germany’s T-Mobile is trying its luck with online music, launching a download service that lets digital music fans in Europe play songs over their cell phones. The service allows subscribers to download tunes to T-Mobile handsets equipped with its new Ear Phones technology. Three of the five major record labels–Sony, Warner and Universal Music–and various independent music labels have signed …

update Apple’s worst-kept secret–the imminent arrival of iTunes in Europe–was finally confirmed to the public at large today. Prefaced both by honky-tonk country tunes and old-time crooning piped into a hall the size of Cornwall, the London launch this morning saw the announcement of a catalog of 700,000 songs, plus videos and audio books finally accessible to British, French and …