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Pew Study Says RIAA Tactics Are Working

Furd writes "The Pew Internet & American Life Project has posted a new data study that purports to show that the RIAA lawsuit strategy has successfully reduced P2P filesharing. While the presentation of the data is weak (poor graphics and weak statistics), the report does suggest that there has been a change in the usage of P2P tools."

7 of 399 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmmm..... add migration to BitTorrent and eMule by aSiTiC · · Score: 5, Informative
    I'd like to see an equally 'fuzzy' Excel graph of the increase in BitTorrent and eDonkey/eMule statistics. I would venture to guess that the sums of the total would be equal to or greater than the usage of KaZaA before RIAA lawsuits.

    I personally know that my friends are quickly moving to eMule due to the degradation of KaZaA's usability. They are having no difficulty in migrating to eMule's interface. Perhaps the RIAA should realize that attacking one source doesn't effect other sources, especially with today's computer literate college youth.

  2. Re:Correlation does not equal causation by jdifool · · Score: 4, Informative
    Hi,

    you said everything that was needed. Well done.
    But the question, now, is : why such a story is posted when this is self-evident than someone is going to refute the very content of the story ? Or is it just meant to allow us to put some more sarcasms to the RIAA ? I still wonder.
    Nothing to see here, move along.

    Regards,
    jdif

    --
    Let's overcome our weakness.
  3. Re:It worked for me by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here's a surprise for you - your "lossless" formats are in fact really lossy. To better understand this, consider the difference between 192KHz 24-bit PCM (the best DVD-Audio can do) and 44.1KHz 16-bit PCM (the format used on all CDs). Both are "lossless" per your definition, but all other things being equal, the DVD-A format provides a more complete reproduction than the CD format does. In fact, the CD format loses about 85% of the theoretical information content that the DVD-A format contains. Now compare the DVD-A format to a hypothetical 512KHz 32-bit PCM encoding, same sort of thing applies, ad infinitum.

    My point is that while you may not like psycho-acoustical compression like mp3,vorbis,aac,etc - you are still losing information with your so-called "lossless" formats, it is just that the choice about what information to through away is not directly based on human perceptual capabilities but rather simple mechanical inability.

    --
    When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  4. Re:What really matters by xophos · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well, what a surprise. The RIAA and international counterparts piss of everyone and then they think they are going to make more money? When you want People to buy something from you, you have to be nice to them, or at least pretend so. Here in Germany we have a huge media Campain that basicly says: If you copy cds or dvds you are a criminal and go to Jail.
    Not only is this hugely exagerated, it is a plain lie. The only chance of going to jail for that, is when you charge money for it.
    But they think they kan scare people into buying crappy songs from crappy mainstream bands...
    Well, i own about 25 cd's, all of which were bought, when you could get them for 15DM (about 7.50 EUR). I will not buy anymore untill i can get them for that price or lower again AND they stop behaving like the mafia. It's bad enough, that i pay a fee on each recordable media i buy for recording Knoppix or Debian on it.

  5. Re:I'm sorry, but that's total bull crap by po8 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Calculations show that anything above 20 bit is simply not worth the effort - you won't be able to hear a single bit of difference anyway, the first 4 bit will be well below the noise floor.

    Be careful how you do those calculations. Frequency domain methods, such as FFT and/or the human ear, can detect periodic signals well below the "noise floor".

  6. Re:Correlation does not equal causation by DashEvil · · Score: 4, Informative

    The eDonkey network (and it's many clients) are more sophisticated. You forgot them. :P

    --
    -If God wanted people to be better than me, he would have made them that way.
  7. The U.S. did it 12 years ago. by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 4, Informative

    This tax benefits mainly folks like Celine Dion and Brian Adams and whomever sings those beer commercial songs. It doesn't benefit the artists of the rest of the world.

    First, it's not a tax. It's a levy, tarrif or royalty, depending on who you talk to.

    Second, it is imposed by international convention just about anywhere you would like to live. http://www.socan.ca/jsp/en/resources/around_world. jsp. It is infact well-distributed around the world.

    Third, they succeeded in imposing a very similar system in the U.S., it happened twelve years ago. The RIAA http://www.riaa.com/issues/licensing/default.asp is a member of the AARC, who admisters the royalties in the U.S. http://www.aarcroyalties.com/.

    AHRA requires manufacturers of digital audio recorders and blank digital discs and tapes to pay royalties to the United States Copyright Office ("Copyright Office") for the benefit of eligible artists and sound recording copyright owners. This is to compensate artists and copyright owners for lost revenues because of the displaced sales caused by home taping.

    I don't really understand this stuff myself, but just check out the websites. They have lots of info up there about what they're doing and why.

    One thing I really don't understand, is why "Happy Birthday" can demand royalties direct through AOL/Time Warner, when systems like this are in place. Urban legend?