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Around seven million people in the UK are involved in illegal downloads, costing the economy tens of billions of pounds, government advisers say.

Researchers found 1.3m people using one file-sharing network on one weekday and estimated that over a year they had free access to material worth £12bn.

The Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property (SABIP) warned it may be hard to change attitudes.

The government says work must be done internationally to tackle the problem.

Intellectual Property Minister David Lammy said the report put into context the impact illegal downloads had on copyright industries and the UK economy as a whole.

But he added: "This is not an issue confined by national boundaries and I am sure that other [EU] member states and their copyright industries will find this report of use in the development of policy."

An alliance of nine UK bodies representing the creative industries recently joined trades unions in calling on the government to force internet service providers to cut off persistent illegal file-sharers.

They said more than half of net traffic in the UK was illegal content.

The Open Rights Group - a UK based group that works on digital rights and freedoms - said the study illustrated the sheer size of the market.

"We need a compelling 'all you can eat' music service to reduce illicit file sharing," the groups executive director, Jim Killock, told the BBC.

"But [we need] to remember that extreme enforcement measures would probably be very unfair and make people angry."

Source: BBC UK