BitTorrent Traffic Falls In the U.S.

First time accepted submitter CAKAS writes "After legal actions taken by several industry outfits, BitTorrent traffic has fallen in the United States to the all time low of 12.7 percent of internet traffic. However, this trend seems to be unique to the U.S. — In other parts of the world, like Europe and Asia, BitTorrent traffic continues to rise. 'According to Sandvine, the absence of legal alternatives is one of the reasons for these high P2P traffic shares.' In the U.S. legal content delivery has flourished and provided customers easy access to content. This seems to suggest that due to these alternatives, people are less willing to pirate and pay the publishers for entertainment." (Calling it an "all-time low" seems a stretch, when talking about something released in 2001.)

Comments

Perhaps it's not that Bittorrent traffic fell

[Feanorian]

Maybe Americans are getting smart and using VPN's and proxies :D

Re:Perhaps it's not that Bittorrent traffic fell

[poity]

But think about the logic of that for a moment.

If what the summary says is true -- that expanded legal alternatives have contributed majorly to the decrease in torrent traffic -- then it means that the argument that most piracy is the result of the content industry's sluggishness in adopting new business models rings true. However, if what you claim is true instead, then it means the former argument is wrong, and that piracy continues despite the industry's efforts to evolve and meet customers' desires.

So, if the article is right, then it is clear evidence to the industry that evolving their business model will have a positive impact, whereas if you are right, then the industry has even more evidence that changing their business model has no effect.

Re:Perhaps it's not that Bittorrent traffic fell

[Opportunist]

Comments on /. are not really the problem. Making something public knowledge certainly is, though.

As much as I was an advocate of "educating the masses" in my early geek days, I'm no longer a proponent of the idea of bringing our great new ideas and developments to them. Hate to say it, but we should simply keep it to ourselves.

Think back of the early days of P2P and general content swapping. Did the MPAA care? Did they hunt you down like rabid dogs? Nah. It was a nuisance, but a petty one. Much like blackboxing was in the good ol' days. Sure, a few people did it and they got away with it, but nobody cared enough to prosecute it. The damage was small and the few that did it were not worth the effort.

Think it would have been the same if it had been the widespread sport of Joe Randomboxer? Think AT&T would have been as lenient as they were? Think again.

It's a matter of magnitude. It's simply damage vs. cost to avoid damage for them. Keep the damage low and they don't care about you. Ramp it up and suddenly you're in their sights.

Yes, there are new ways of exchanging information and hiding it from the prying eye. But I'm no longer willing to share it with the masses. Call me an elitist bastard, so be it, but unless I can see some benefit in it, or rather, more benefit than harm, I see no reason to share that information with them.

Re:Netflix, not "legal actions"

[neros1x]

Isn't it funny? Record companies swore that DRM-free mp3s would destroy their industry, and the MPAA fought for years to keep movies offline. The rest of the world argues, "People will pay for content that is easily available and user-friendly." Now we have the proof. I feel vindicated, somehow.

idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

let me see they migrate to a new format that cuts the size roughly in half and the traffic is at 12.7 % that means to equate it to old use would be 25.2% an actual increase form the 17 % it was the previous year...
WOOT FOR STUPID PAYING ATTENTION
and cudos to x264 for making it to the big time ( i been making my own SD x264 rips since 2004)

Re:TL:DR

[AngryDeuce]

The thing I don't understand with Netflix is why the fucking PS3/360/Wii clients are so godawful. Why the hell do they not just give you a goddamned alphabetical list of everything they stream? Because it would be too easy for people to find what they really want to watch?

I refuse to watch Netflix on my Windows PC because fuck silverlight in it's stupid ass, but the arbitrary beshittedness of the console clients has me utterly perplexed because I can think of no reason why they would release a client like that in the first place. It's ridiculous that I have to use a 3rd party site to browse their offerings like someone that isn't only interested in shows related to the last goddamned thing they watched or some ridiculously specific categories ("Ooh, let's browse the 'heartwarming family films from the 80's' category, that's bound to have a wide selection to choose from for streaming!").

Re:TL:DR

[Deathlizard]

I wanted to keep the original post simple, but you're right.

The biggest problem here is that content providers don't want services like Hulu and Netflix. They would rather you pay for cable or Satellite or DVD's ETC. Hell, they don't even like VCR's or DVR's for that matter.

A great example I could give is lets say I want to create a cable company called CableNet which would be a cable company that uses internet streaming boxes (ie Roku, Boxee, Google TV, ETC) and HTML5 web browsers to stream live cable TV channels to any PC, TV, or mobile device. Lets say I even charge Cable rates for the service. (ie 19.95 to 59.95 depending on channel packages.) I guarantee that It would be near impossible to get content providers on board even if I was willing to pay the same or even higher license fees that the big cable companies like TWC and Comcast were paying simply because I'm using the internet instead of Coax or a satellite to stream Live TV. If they did get on board they would force restrictions like you could only use one stream per account, or allow multiple streaming for one IP only. Or would have to DRM the hell out of the stream or even block certain content. I won't even get started with Internet providers regarding this service. TWC and Comcast would do whatever it takes to kill this model from Data caps to price hikes for cableless internet.

This is the problem that Netflix and Hulu have. RIAA and MPAA knows Netflix works. Its a shame that they keep trying to kick Netflix and Hulu to the curb.

Different conclusion:

[nurb432]

1 - Nothing released recently is worth getting..
2 - Proxies/darknets