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A US company, Big Champagne, regularly prepares reports for labels, detailing the number of p2p users who are sharing a particular artist or song, which music those people are also buying and where they live.

In the first week of August, for example, Arcade Fire songs were being shared by 1.3 per cent of p2p users, an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people, the largest proportion of whom live in San Francisco. And 60 per cent of them also have Coldplay in their collections. For record company marketing executives this kind of information is invaluable, enabling them to target advertising campaigns and push radio stations to play the most popularly shared tracks.

'You can get a really good psychographic profile of a listener base by just looking at the collections of people who download this or that,' said Big Champagne's Eric Garland. 'And that becomes tremendously important, because early in the life

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of a record, labels don't necessarily know who the audience is. They just know they've got something great.'

When Big Champagne first approached the labels five years ago meetings were held 'across the street' as label executives did not want to be seen to be endorsing sharing even though to some extent they were. The fact that Big Champagne is now out in the open reflects the fact that labels are as likely to turn to it for data as on legitimate downloads services.

The ranks of the legal services may soon be joined by a number of p2p operators. Grokster, having lost a landmark legal case that ruled its software illegal, is said to be closest to an agreement with the music industry, principally because it looks likely to be taken over by the Sony-backed Mashboxx. Mashboxx is in the process of setting up an authorised sharing service and has also had talks with three other p2p operators: eDonkey, Morpheus and LimeWire.

'We are looking at a number of acquisitions,' said Wayne Rosso, the founder of MashBoxx, 'but they have to make sense.'

iMesh has also reached an agreement with labels to provide legal file sharing and it too is looking at potential acquisitions, but remains coy on who they are talking to and how much money is involved.

'We have initiated discussion with a number of well-known players,' was all executive chairman Robert E Summer was prepared to say.