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The High Court granted the order after hearing evidence from the Federation Against Software Theft (Fast), which said that once the ISPs have revealed the identities of the alleged sharers the information will be handed over to the police.

Fast launched Operation Tracker last March in a bid to find the chief repositories of what it believes is millions of pounds of illegally installed software, amounting to perhaps a quarter of all programmes in use in the UK.

Fast director general defended the decision to go to the police.

'We can easily take down links, but this does not tackle the root causes of software piracy, because the links will reappear elsewhere in a matter of hours,' he said. 'Instead, we plan to take action a lot further, making an example of the perpetrators to stop them from stealing and passing on the intellectual property of our members for good.'

Penalties for the unauthorised communication of copyright material can amount up to two years in prison and unlimited fines.

Fast said that this is only the 'first wave' and that action will be taken in future as and when it is deemed necessary.