Six of the UK's biggest net providers are believed to backed a government plan to tackle music piracy online.

The plan commits the firms to working towards a "significant reduction" in the illegal sharing of music.

The first stage of the campaign will involve hundreds of thousands of letters being sent to net users suspected of illegally sharing music.

The BBC has been told that the memorandum commits the net firms to develop legal music services.

Official confirmation of the deal is expected later.

Letters to pirates

The six firms, which will be named early on Thursday, are understood to have signed a Memorandum of Understanding drawn up by the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR).

The BBC has been told that the firms have agreed to ensure their customers know it is illegal to share copyrighted music.

It is believed that the memorandum also requires net firms to go further in their attempts to tackle illegal file-sharing.

At the same time the government is also expected to start a consultation exercise that could result in laws that force net firms to tackle music piracy.

In the past few weeks net firms Virgin and BT have sent letters to some customers identified by the BPI, which represents the UK record industry, as persistent music pirates.

Before now the BPI has called for a "three-strikes" system which would see net connections of persistent pirates terminated if three warnings went ignored.

Many net firms have resisted the call from the BPI and have said it was not their job to act as policemen.

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An Edinburgh couple have lost a battle with the estate of Chronicles of Narnia author CS Lewis over a web domain name.

Richard Saville-Smith paid £70 for the name www.narnia.mobi so his son Comrie, 11, who is a CS Lewis fan, could use it for his e-mail address.

But the company which owns the rights to the late author's work lodged a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization.

It ruled that the domain name should be transferred to C.S. Lewis (Pte) Ltd.

'Clear statements'

Mr Saville-Smith's wife Gillian Ferguson said she was shocked by the decision.

She said: "It should have been pretty straightforward.

"They had to prove that we had made a bad faith purchase, that we had been using it to make money.

"We provided very clear statements from the internet registration company saying that we had not tried to make any money and yet somehow he has just simply ignored the evidence."

"We have not done anything illegal or wrong, we were perfectly entitled to have this domain name"
Gillian Ferguson

She said she thought the WIPO had decided to transfer the domain name because the company has other Narnia trademarks.

"It did not really matter what we said," Ms Ferguson added.

"They should have to prove it but unfortunately they ignored the evidence and did not accept that an e-mail address for a child was legitimate use."

In 2006, companies had a three-month period to express interest in .mobi website names before they were made more widely available.

Ms Ferguson said: "We have not done anything illegal or wrong, we were perfectly entitled to have this domain name.

"There was three months in which they could have registered this. There was a private period for any trademark holder to register any .mobi domain name when they went on sale in 2006.

" We did not buy ours until after that three-month period had expired and it was open for public sale.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation

The first official image of a Russian-European manned spacecraft has been unveiled.

It is designed to replace the Soyuz vehicle currently in use by Russia and will allow Europe to participate directly in crew transportation.

The reusable ship was conceived to carry four people towards the Moon, rivalling the US Ares/Orion system.

Unlike previous crewed vehicles, it will use thrusters to make a controlled landing when it returns to Earth.

Russian aerospace writer and graphic designer Anatoly Zak has produced artist's renderings of the new craft based on a design released by Russian manufacturer RKK Energia at the Farnborough Air Show in the UK last week.

"I think the main roadmap is the agreement between the European and Russian space agencies. That is their Plan A"
Anatoly Zak

In some respects, the capsule resembles America's next-generation spacecraft Orion. The 18-to-20-tonne Russian-European vehicle is designed to carry six crew into low-Earth orbit and four on missions to lunar orbit.

One of the most unusual features about the capsule appear to be the thrusters and landing gear on its underside. Mr Zak said it would use these engines to soften its landing on Earth after the fiery re-entry through our atmosphere.

The European Space Agency (Esa) has been talking to its Russian counterpart Roscosmos about collaborating on the Crew Space Transportation System (CSTS) since 2006.

Launcher decision

"If Esa and the Russian Space Agency reach agreement, Europe will supply the service module of that co-operative spacecraft," Mr Zak told BBC News.

This service module will use technology - such as the propulsion systems - developed for Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), an unmanned freighter recently sent to re-supply the International Space Station (ISS).

Russia may provide the launcher for the new manned spacecraft. This might be an entirely new vehicle, or a modification of an existing rocket.

Mr Zak said Russia was insisting in its negotiations with Europe that all future manned projects be based in Vostochny, the new cosmodrome being developed in Russia's eastern Amur region. The Russian government wants to host its first launch from that site in 2018.

At the moment, all manned Soyuz launches take place from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Alternatively, the space agencies could opt to "man-rate" Europe's Ariane 5 launcher, which lifts off from Kourou in French Guiana. This would allow the rocket to carry humans into space.

This would involve making major modifications to Kourou spaceport, including the development of infrastructure to support a crew escape system in the event of an emergency.

It is quite possible that both launch sites would play a role in any collaborative programme, which would necessitate the lofting of cargo as well as human crew.

However, if this collaboration falls apart, Europe has another option for direct manned access to space.

Other option

In May this year, European aerospace company EADS Astrium unveiled its own model of a crewed space vehicle, described as an "evolution" of the ATV, which was built by a consortium of European companies led by Astrium.

It would combine what is essentially the avionics and propulsion end of the ATV with a crew compartment taking the place of the current cargo section.

EADS Astrium has proposed a manned version of the ATV

Berlin unveils 'crewed spaceship'

Mr Zak commented: "I think the main roadmap is the agreement between the European and Russian space agencies. That is their Plan A. Their Plan B is the initiative made by EADS Astrium in Bremen."

But if the agencies want a manned craft capable of reaching the Moon, they will need to develop new, more powerful rockets than those on the drawing board today.

"This is an open question, there are no decisions on how to proceed," said Mr Zak.

The CSTS is also sometimes referred to as the Advanced Crew Transportation System (ACTS). Esa and Roscosmos started talks on the project after some Esa member states rejected further involvement in the development of another manned spacecraft called Kliper.

The proposals will go before a crucial meeting of space ministers from European member states in November this year.

Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation