In bedrooms all over the world, music and film fans are downloading billions of tracks and movies - for free.

It's reached the point where the film and music industries are expressing fear for their very existence.

Since the birth of the internet, the giants of the entertainment industry have been unable to get their act together to sell their wares successfully on the web.

Instead they've been outmanoeuvred by pirate networks which give away the product for nothing.

The entertainment business sunk Napster but an armada of alternative pirate networks immediately appeared on the horizon.

Music fans now download 3.6 billion tracks per month and film fans are downloading half a million movies a day.

Impresario Pete Waterman warns the pirates: "The very thing that you're downloading, you'll kill." But others blame the entertainment industry for failing to adapt to the new technological order.

The Money Programme explains the debate around what unabashed pirate Keith McIver describes as "an unstoppable force."

'Attack of the Cyber Pirates' will be shown on Wednesday 17th July at 7.30pm on BBC TWO

Producer: Jeremy Monblatt
Series Editor: Clive Edwards