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Study Finds 0.3% of BitTorrent Files Definitely Legal
Andorin writes "It's common knowledge that the majority of files distributed over BitTorrent violate copyright, though the exact percentage is unclear. The Internet Commerce Security Laboratory of the University of Ballarat in Australia has conducted a study and found that 89% of files examined were in fact infringing, while most of the remaining 11% were ambiguous but likely to be infringing. Ars Technica summarizes the study: 'The total sample consisted of 1,000 torrent files—a random selection from the most active seeded files on the trackers they used. Each file was manually checked to see whether it was being legally distributed. Only three cases—0.3 percent of the files—were determined to be definitely not infringing, while 890 files were confirmed to be illegal. ' The study brings with it some other interesting statistics; out of the 1,000 files, 91 were pornographic, and approximately 4% of torrents were responsible for 80% of seeders. Music, movies and TV shows constituted the three largest categories of shared materials, and among those, zero legal files were found."
Look on the bright side. For every 45 DVD rips downloaded, that's 1 Linux LiveCD that someone has acquired. Therefore, pirating movies is good for Linux adoption!
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You're kidding me, it's that high...wow!!
I think it's about time they legalize piracy.
I applied their study methodology to sex in a status update.
If you only look for sex statistics in brothels you'll only find prostitutes and from that information you can be sure that 99.7% of all human sex is paid for.
As you can see it is sound and the results are rock solid!
I ate your fish.
within a small margin, this appears to be the standard ratio of the internet.
I think that's called Sturgeon's Law.