TalkTalk takes on Bono as he joins the file-sharing debate

It's quite a surprise the usually vocal Bono has taken this long to get involved in the row over file-sharing, but he dived in with his usual gusto in a New York Times guest columnist piece at the weekend.

In short, the U2 frontman sent a warning to Hollywood that the film industry would go the way of the newspaper and music industries as files got bigger, broadband got faster and P2P (peer to peer) file-sharing became more rife. Noting it would soon be possible to download an entire season of TV series 24 in 24 seconds, he laid the blame at the doorstep of the internet service providers (ISPs), claiming, "the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business".

Bono went on to pretty much accuse the ISPs of a failure to act, looking to the battle against online child pornography as an example of how they can block unwanted content. As he attempted to rally America's "movie moguls" to act to stop file-sharing, he even mentioned China's suppression of online content in an even less ill advised comparison to how ISP's could possibly stop the practice.

TalkTalk, the most vocal UK ISP in the debate, was quick to release a statement condemning Bono's piece. A statement read: "The U2 frontman is seriously misguided. ISPs generate no additional revenue or profit from customers sharing files. In fact we incur some marginal cost due to the extra bandwidth required.

"It is outrageous to equate the need to protect minors from the evils of child pornography with the need to protect copyright owners.  As a society we have accepted that it is appropriate and proportionate to intrude on people's Internet use by blocking access to sites that host child abuse images. To suggest that sharing a music file is every bit as evil as child abuse beggars belief."

Of course, TalkTalk's statement over-eggs the pudding just as much as Bono's, but both make important points. Just like the industry in which the ageing rocker has become rooted over the past three decades, there has been much reaping and very little forward planning. The truth is that the old heads at the record labels didn't see the internet as a threat from day one, so rested on its considerable laurels. Now the profits are running dry and it is doing what everyone does in a panic - blame someone else. I wouldn't suggest for a minute that Bono doesn't deserve to make money from every sale of his music, whether MP3 or otherwise, but I think he should lay a large amount of the blame at the door of his label bosses.

He might also want to talk to some of the newer bands who have successfully used MP3s, and the internet at large, to bring themselves considerable success and coverage - and let's not forget the money that can be made from live performances and the sale of merchandise. There's a much bigger picture to be seen here: musicians that truly love to be musicians will play as long as they can get by, while others keep day jobs for decades while doing music part time. Musicians don't have to be rich, and labels richer - the times may be a changin'.

TalkTalk goes over the top in its attack on Bono, as he never attempts to claim child pornography is on a par with music piracy: the ISP chose to fight fire with fire, when it might have been better advised to sit him down in a corner and explain the finer points of its argument to him instead. I'm sure the New York Times would love to print the other side of the debate from a well-informed (or at least famous) source. But credit to TalkTalk for sticking to its guns and defending the ISPs, and legal file sharers, while many of its competitors publicly look the other way.

That said, illegal file-sharing is a crime and if people are making money out of the process they should undoubtedly be punished to the full extent of the law. The ISPs need to do more than throw these arguments back in the faces of those who make them, as a certain level of responsibility certainly falls on their shoulders. After all, if they had dealt with illegal file-sharing themselves, legislation wouldn't have been necessary. TalkTalk is going to be introducing controls that will allow fixed-line broadband account holders to block P2P traffic at the router, stopping other people using the connection illegally downloading without their knowledge. But this is only part of the puzzle. After all, much P2P traffic is legal. Let's just hope the level of acrimony that is mounting between the two industries doesn't cloud progress any more than it already has.