'Digital piracy' cost £1.4bn and thousands of jobs in UK

ILLEGAL downloading of music, films and television programmes cost Britain 39,000 jobs and retail losses of £1.4 billion in 2008, a report claimed yesterday.

The report, commissioned by Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy, has been endorsed by trade unions representing the EU's "creative industries", as well as the International Actors Federation, producers and employers in the audiovisual sector.

Yesterday in Brussels the groups joined forces to urge the European Commission to step up enforcement of intellectual property rights, and to ask MEPs to oppose the legalisation of file-sharing for music and films over the internet.

John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, said: "

The EU urgently needs to create the legal framework that will properly address infringement of intellectual property, both offline and online."