Slashdot Mirror
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 do too. I buy all CD's USED. cince buying used CD's gives ZERO profit to the RIAA and pisses them off to no end.
the only new Cd's I buy have been from IUMA artist and other indie bands I have found online and at their concerts.
do I download music on a p2p netowrk? hell yeah. but then I buy that used CD to get a better copy of the recording.
I suggest that EVERYONE buy used cd's only whenever possible. it will help a small business in your area, plus it will smack the RIAA in a way that royally pains them but they can do nothing about.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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?!).
--
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.
Buying used tables is only one small step above piracy. Sure, it gives nothing to the CIAA (Carpentry Industry Association of America), but it also gives nothing back to the carpenters.
I am a blacksmith and this is been a major issue with our industry. The rise of used hammers is far scarier than outright piracy.
I suspect one of the reasons for any possible reversal is that as the press about the lawsuits dies down so does peoples conciousness about it.
Scare tactics only work when you are scaring people. That's why the law suits won't work in the long term. You'd not only need new lawsuits all the time but you'd need the press to continue to be bothered to write about them. Otherwise for 99% of people they effectively aren't happening and there's nothing to worry about.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I use P2P services even now. I downloaded Fedora 1.0 at a rate of about 2-4x that I was getting from an FTP server. When you're sucking down a trio of 600+ MB isos, that's a big savings!
Why do we assume that P2P networks are only being used by college students who want porn and music... could there perhaps be professionals in the industry out there too?
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.
The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
Da Blog
As Obi-Wan might say, you can't win, but there are alternatives to downloading.
Your local public library has CDs that you can borrow, usually for a week or so, absolutely free.
Some of the more sophisticated libraries allow you to search and request titles online, so that a CD that's at a library twenty miles away, or currently checked out by someone else, will be sent to your nearest library as soon as it is available. Some libraries will send an email to let you know that your titles have arrived.
Library CDs are often pretty beat up, and many are missing the original booklets or jewel cases, but they will still play in a good player. You can even do your library a favor and use some of that CD repair glop on them so future borrowers can enjoy them as well (assuming that stuff actually works).
Now, I don't advocate that anyone go to their library's website, request a lot of titles that they want online, go pick them up, take them to their office with several networked PCs on a Saturday afternoon, rip the CDs to AAC, burn them onto a couple of blank CD-RWs, take them home, pop them into iTunes, and then transfer them all to an iPod. I couldn't support that. Especially since it's free.
Now that I've let that cat out of the bag, we can expect to see the RIAA confiscating CDs from public libraries across the country, as well as obtaining Patriot Act subpoenas demanding to know the names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of every library patron who has ever borrowed a CD. Since librarians have about as much political clout as homeless people (actually a little less), Congress and the media will look the other way.
Or am I being exceptionally paranoid?
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Its like the old "Its September again" on usenet. I'm guessing that as soon as classes start up again and many more students get back with their new MP3 players, the games will start again.
I love the way that they assume that 14% increase in P2P usage == 14% increase in music sharing.
P2P != music sharing.
Its used for many other things as well, like, eh, movie sharing and ISOs etc..
Despite the fact that apparently five moderators were duped into calling this insightful, if anyone had bothered to read the story (or all the similar stories over the last week -- slashdot is becoming a slow and poorly edited version of google news) they would note that music swapping increased during the final months of the year, not decreased, and it has been hypothesized that this has to do with increased interest in music as Christmas approaches.
We now return you to your regular uninformed slashdot comments.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
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.
.
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.
"Free market" in this country sure looks an awful lot like old soviet socialism. It's no wonder they can't put a dent in "piracy" when the companies claiming to be "victims" look just as evil as Ivan and Boris that run the Ukrainian pressing plants...
This is self-reported usage So all the figures represent is the percentage of people who download music and are dumb enough to admit it to anyone who calls claiming to be a pollster. Of course this percentage would go down in light of the RIAA witch hunt regardless of whether there is any change, up or down, in actual file sharing.
All statistics based on self-reported data should be taken with a large spoonful of salt!
Repeal the DMCA!
First, the RIAA has done a very good job at injecting false music files, especially with hot artists. If you search "Eminem", most likely the top ten downloadable files that return are bogus. They play for five seconds, then BUZZZZ. Irritating. But I gues it's fire with fire. Second reason is that the initial flurry of downloading resulted in people downloading most of what they wanted. I used to be on P2P daily, but now it's only every couple of weeks, because my library is big enough that I could listen to it for days on end. So I believe the survey, but I think it's disingenuous to place cause/effect squarely on the lawsuits. I like to think of it as an "all-you-can-eat" buffet where the crowd has already gorged themselves. The new guys coming in the front door of the buffet will be eating, and the rest of us will be going back for seconds, but not with immediate gusto.