RSSIllegal File Sharing Drops Post Grokster
By Nate Mook | Published December 14, 2005, 5:20 PM
According to research firm NPD Group, illegal peer-to-peer file sharing has dropped for the first time since the RIAA began its legal assault in 2003. Since that initial victory, P2P usage has only gone up -- until the June U.S. Supreme Court ruling against Grokster.
In June, an estimated 6.4 million United States households downloaded at least one music file, but by October that number had dipped to 5.7 million, an 11 percent decrease. NPD says the change is the first significant drop it has seen that is not related to "seasonality," such as students returning to school.
The firm largely attributed the drop to the record and entertainment industry's victory against file sharing service Grokster in June. The Supreme Court ruled that Grokster and other P2P networks can be held liable for the actions of their users, depending on how they market their services.
Grokster officially shut its doors in November, joining WinMX and eDonkey, and agreed to pay $50 million to settle music and movie piracy claims. Grokster, like iMesh, has plans to resurface as a legit music download network utilizing technology from its new parent company Mashboxx.
StreamCast Networks, maker of Morpheus and Kazaa owner Sharman Networks have pledged to continue their legal battle against the RIAA and MPAA, although it's unclear how long the two P2P services will remain standing.
But despite the decrease in terms of P2P usage, the number of actual files being traded has gone up since June from 258 million to 266 million. NPD said the difference indicates that major file swappers -- the small percentage of users sharing the vast majority of content -- have not given up.
Also, it's not clear how many users have moved away from public networks to private ones, which are harder to monitor and track. With BitTorrent quickly becoming the new file sharing standard, closed groups have formed around the technology to keep the prying eyes of the RIAA out.
According to another research firm, BigChampagne, illicit P2P use continues to rise, even after the June Grokster decision. The number of average global users peaked above 9.5 million in August and remains over 9 million, say the company's statistics, which are compiled by counting unique nodes and files on popular networks.
I'm guessing more crap has gone underground , and like cory1492 said, the availability of the legal cheap stuff probably does it's share. itunes and yahoo music is after all a big market
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|P2P is alive and well here in Europe. Prostitution is illegal in most of the United States of Ameri-KaIn Europe we have decided that a more tolerant attitude is needed. Idem for drugs. The RIAA IS FIGHTING A LOSING BATTLE. DO YOU AMERICANS REMEMBER PROHIBITION ?
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|hey man, the government of america doesn't speak for the people anymore... you really think bush could win anything if it was fair game?
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|The only way the RIAA will get what they are after is when they work with the government and add a "P2P Tax" to the tax bill and instead of sue everyone, tax everyone. I think they need to sue libraries, the Media centers at college libraries allow students to go get the whole CD and copy it, then bring it back to the library, then it acts like a legal copy.
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|Yeah... try enforcing a tax on an activity that's already supposed to be illegal.
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|WINCEMENT SEI UNO STRONZO !!!
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|What the heck is a stronzo?
and did you have anything ON topic to say?
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|http://www.wordreference.com/iten/stronzo
you should be more offended, lol
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|Thanks for the link.
"you should be more offended"
Nah. Not worth my time.
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|Most ppl I know including my self have moved on to BitTorrent, leaving the poisoned FastTrack protocol behind. I still use the Direct Connect network some times, via nmdc.
I dont see why anyone would use FastTrack (kazaa, grokster, etc..) anymore, when there are so mutch better alternatives out there.
This is why the RIAA and MPAA etc. are just effecting ignorant p2p users who dont know any better, but theyl learn.....
"n June, an estimated 6.4 million United States households downloaded at least one music file, but by October that number had dipped to 5.7 million,"
....The 0.7 mill drop is probably just 11,12 and 13 year olds, who dont know the alternatives.
MESSAGE TO THE RECORD AND MOVIE INDUSTRY......
YOU CANT WIN!!!!!
citizen420,
official pirate.
[edit]oh yea, almost forgot to say, these numbers seem way offfffffff! its atleast 2x as mutch for the US, and probably 500 mill for the rest of the world.
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|The RIAA got these numbers the same way they came up with the numbers of how much they claim the music industry is losing from downloading. They made them up.
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|BitTorrent is the true P2P network, with no www.archive.org servers that cached hundreds of thousands of music files.
And more people began using BitTorrents since the GRATEFUL DEAD sold out to the RIAA and began fighting amongst themselves to start the THANKSGIVING holidays.
That stuff isn't gonna disappear overnight after 30 years of Jerry Garcia encouring piracy and another decade of ambivolence...
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|You can never stop P2P.
The whole nature of P2P is just that. Serverless.
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|lol...so it dropped from 6.4 million to 5.7 million huh? So .7 million people decided they're not going to tell the RIAA that they're downloading files anymore just incase they decide to start suing again....nah that can't be. :)
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|Personally, I think its a false positive. Its like smoking is down in teenagers for the first time in 20 years, yeah BS!!!
The teens SAY they don't smoke, because they know the pressure is on, same with P2P, they WANT to believe the RIAA is having an impact, but people are finding more creative ways to hide files..
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|How the heck are they getting these "6.4 million" statistics? Looks like utter BS to me...considering right now there's 14 million people on emule alone at the time of this post.
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|Hahahahahahahaa
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|That's what I was wondering. It seems like literally every connected computer user file-shares (excluding myself - except for Linux distros).
I would think somewhere closer to 100 million in the U.S. alone...
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|??eh?
So you mean to say that illegal filesharing hasn't gone down a tad due to the existance of legal pay-per-tune services like ITunes and Napster - that its simply the RIAA and MPAA's fear tactics that causes such things?
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|you're probably right. the availability of it legally through easy channels is probably a factor.
It was just easier to get it on p2p than legally earlier, and since people are inherantly lazy...
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|is it just more or has it been really slow in december on anything new being released on P2P
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|Yeah, SUREEE. And US is also winning the Irak war... Dream on.
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|They're fantasizing - plain and simple, trying to prop up the failing image of their "countermeasures". I have news for them: this is the age of the Internet. No more secrets, no more lies.
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|hahaahahahhaahhah
you kill one 10 will pop up
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|LoL...
Does the US really think it will ever win the battle of P2P file sharing?
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|Make that 23.2 million users on eMule
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|I wonder how long the clowns at RIAA took to decide what figures they would engineer to justify their miserable existence.
They are going the way of the dinosaur, dying out because of lack of brains, and they don't know how to exist in a changing world.
BTW, did you know that 79.85% of all statistics and 'facts' are made up? LOL
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|Fact: Even though you must now buy your MP3's online, the artists are still getting screwed. This time it by their employer again.
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|Yeah, I took a peak on eMule last week ... it seems stronger than ever. Am I wrong?
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|"BTW, did you know that 79.85% of all statistics and 'facts' are made up? LOL"
yea don't know what to beleave these days. i head a report that with the economy we live in today it would cost over $18,000 to buy everything that is mentioned in the christmas song "12 days of christmas".
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|That depends on what service you use.
Sometimes, yes, that is true.
Artists typically make most of their money from tours and selling merchandise. Sad.
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