Earlier this week, British and Dutch police shut down the world’s biggest source of illegal pre-release chart albums and arrested its founder, Alan Ellis.

The raids, which were coordinated by Interpol, follow a two-year investigation by the international and UK music industry bodies IFPI and BPI.

OiNK specialised in distributing albums leaked on to the internet, often weeks ahead of their official release date. More than 60 major album releases had been leaked on OiNK so far this year, according to the IFPI.

The site had an estimated membership of 180,000, and allegedly made money by setting up a donations account on the site facilitated by PayPal.

In an interview with the BBC, Lord Triesman hinted at tough measures to combat file sharing and other types of intellectual property theft, announcing that:

"If we can't get voluntary arrangements we will legislate."

However, he went on to tell the iPM programme that:

"For the most part I think there are going to be successful voluntary schemes between the creative industries and ISPs. Our preferred position is that we shouldn't have to regulate."