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P2P File Swapping on the Rise Again?
asdf 101 writes "News.com reports today that 'After six months of declines, peer-to-peer usage recently climbed 14 percent.' Their bottomline: 'The decline came as the RIAA launched more than 300 lawsuits against file swappers. The reversal cast doubts on the music industry's claims that its lawsuits are working to deter people from illegally downloading music files.' I guess wake_up_and_smell_the_coffee time just gets that much more imminent for all the hacks at RIAA." There's also an AP story, and you might want to review this story from just a few weeks ago that has different conclusions.
I now bittorrent most stuff, and use Aquisition (OS X) for the most part.
According to everything I see, filesharing on the Mac is pretty much under the radar, which is fine by me.
Of course, I have a giant FTP server that serves everything I've ever downloaded, ratio free. I only give the addy/name/password to people I know, and that keeps leeches away, as well as the xxAAs. I freely share it all with people who need something. Why not? I know what I'm doing is against the law, but frankly everyone you know does something against the law everyday, whether they know it or not.
This is just my bit of civil disobediece. I'm posting this anon so I don't have a pile of emails asking for access.
I think when the RIAA first started to file lawsuits many many people got scared and either stopped filesharing or at least took steps to limit their risk of being sued (e.g. turning of file sharing programs when they're not being used).
I think people are still taking steps to limit their own personal risk (in the article this is reflected by It's important to keep in mind that file sharing is occurring less frequently than before the RIAA began its legal efforts to stem the tide of P2P). However, looking at people I know, I think a significant number of them who completely stopped filesharing when the RIAA started to file lawsuits are starting to do so again. My theory on this is that they've noticed that all of the people they know who still use p2p have not gotten sued, so they've concluded that some p2p usage is probably safe. This empirical result makes sense given the large number of p2p users, and the proportionaly limited number of lawsuits the RIAA has been able to file. Note that, this doesn't mean that p2p services are necessarily safe, it just means that for the majority of the population it appears that they are less dangerous then they might have thought they were a few months ago.
And from this they learned that immediately after RIAA started some highly publicised lawsuits, people who were aware that their activities were being actively (voluntarily) monitored cut down on their use of P2P software, and perhaps even more stunningly, people asked in paper surveys whether or not they were doing anything they could be sued for were less likely to say "yes".
I guess the fact that the numbers are going up again is mildly interesting, but I don't see that you can draw many conclusions the earllier drop in recorded p2p use. "Not telling" is at least as likely as "not doing". Promises of anonymity or not, it's human nature.
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
I own more than 1,500 CDs. Up until recently, I owned an additional 400 cassettes, but they degraded so much over time that I eventually had to pitch them after several unsuccessful attempts to record them as MP3s. I have purchased, on average, three to four CDs, every week for the past several years.
Prior to this year, I had very little experience with file sharing. I always thought it took too long, required too much effort and I didn't want to worry about poor rips at low bitrates. I thought both sides have their collective heads up their collective asses. Traders whining about copyright law vs theft and the music industry doing everything they can to destroy themselves. I don't know what's more annoying, people saying that they steal because music is overpriced, or label executives saying that traders will put low-level employees out of business. Show me that trailer with the stuntman again and I'll barf! Plus, I liked to point out that just about every complete album I downloaded I ended up purchasing. It seemed like P2P was a non-issue and both sides were idiots.
Then I got sick over the holidays and ended up hanging out in bed. After my third straight day of Bond movies on Spike, I decided to see how long it would take to download Pitchfork's Top 50 Singles of 2003 on a P2P network. By the end of the night I had the complete list, and suddenly the challenge was "How long would it take to download their top 50 ALBUMS of the year.
In the last two weeks I've downloaded nearly 50 CDs (Only six of them were on Pitchfork's list). Many have been out of print albums, but many more have been straight-up recent commercial releases. The quality is awesome and modern software enables you to queue up a long list of files and forget about it.
I now see what the RIAA has been so afraid of. Just a few weeks ago I was spending $50 a week on CDs. Now I drive by a record store and think "What sort of chump pays for music?" I don't download because music is expensive -- I download because it's too freakin' EASY. If one of their strongest customers is so easily turned, what's up with the casual consumer. The media companies are screwed.
Don't worry, I RTFA and they didn't mention any. But 2 points:
1. This is not seasonally adjusted. OK, reliable seasonal adjustment is not easy in usch a small data set, but comparing November to Septemer is a misnomer. In November college students have got they computer systems set up and want some entertainment but September they're just starting out and havn't got their computers set up (and the whole April-September season they're working or on holiday). How about some quantitive statistics so YoY% growth can discount seasonality.
2. I have noticed a serious decline (this is a personal observation, not any scientific analysis) in my turnover in several key P2P networks recently. Since Kazaa acted against KazzaLite clients and servers on the Kazaa network seem to have significantly fallen (thoug the population stats in the client browser show similar numbers as before), I suspect Kazaa implemted an update on the protocol, but don't have any details. On eDonkey it is increasingly hard to et a connection, let alone a decent DL rate, but ULs are saturated. On WinMX there has been a decline in availibility of most files. I would like to know the cause of these changes (it can't all be a updated implementation on Kazaa and a contagion effect on other protocols can it?!).
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FreeNET user? Comfortable with the adverse selection?
As im sure alot of /.'s are aware their is a program out there called Bittorrent.
My preferred client is Bittorrent++.
Now, if you like to download stuff in an environment that kinda reminds me of the ol audiogalaxy days I strongly recommend you try out Suprnova.org. Obviosly this is still subjective to riaa 'snooping' as the clients dont appear to support ip range banning, but since they are Open source, anyone can be free to implement any sort of riaa spoofing/protection.
DSLIP Web Design and Content Management Australia.
Evidently, a decrease in numbers of people hosting large volumes of files has taken place.. however the P2P networls are all still running well.
I suspect people have taken to downloading files, keeping them a few days or weeks on their shared volumes and then deleting... many people have always done this, when you get a file you help a few more people get it, then delete the shared copy to reduce the likelihood of legal action against yourself
in other words P2P has become more distributed.. more multiply redundant. Less legally actionable.
RIAA, and your counterparts here in Europe. We're the people who you have to thank if you wake up in the morning: everything in your comfy leather-lined world relies on IT support.
Don't screw with us. You'll lose.
And as I pointed out elsewhen, buying used CDs leaves you in possession of a piece of personal property, roughly worth what you payed for it.
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You have reduced your liquidity, but actually retained net value, thus, in a sense, obtained the music for "free."
And as a piece of property you retain all legal property rights, such as resale (see above), to use wherever and in whatever playback device you wish, the right to loan, the right to make backups for personal use, The right to use as a frickin' frisbee or wall covering if you want.
Yes, I buy used books too. Lots and lots and lots of used books. Dirt cheap at library sales. Sometimes very expensive used books, because they're out of print and the publisher refuses to sell me a copy anyway.
What happens when your favorite download site withdraws part of the library? I've got stuff from mp3.com. Stuff that I think is outrageously good.
I'd give you a link, but. .
Protect your right to consider your own property your own property. Buy used CDs and books.
You might even be doing your part to protect the intellectual property itself.
KFG
Actually, as a college student who's college decides to block all the major file sharing services, being able to go home to a nice DSL connection meant time to catch up on some things that needed to be downloaded. All legal, of course.