P2P File Swapping on the Rise Again? 319
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 haven't used p2p in months (Score:5, Informative)
I'll keep going until the companies that support the RIAA are bankrupted or they relent with their assault on fair use rights.
Re:It depends on who you ask... (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't say exactly which networks are monitored, just:
NPD uses two tools to monitor peer-to-peer activity. MusicWatch Digital is a tool that continuously examines PCs of roughly 40,000 participating individuals, recording which sites they have gone to and what they have downloaded on their hard drives. The ongoing survey has been compiling and analyzing data on a monthly basis since April 2003. The second tool, called MusicLab, is a traditional paper survey mailed to 5,000 individuals asking them to report their usage and Web surfing. The results represent the U.S. population.
There are bound to be variations, and yes, it definately does depend on who you ask. This is perhaps as "neutral" as they come though.
4 million online at Kazaa (Score:3, Informative)
Can RIAA sue them all? There is strength in numbers. People would not take them seriously, if the chance of getting caught is next to nothing (if you don't share your entire HD worth of britney sphere =b)
Decline of Individual Music File Sharing... (Score:5, Informative)
As a quick check visit top 100 lists such as Pitchfork top 50 of 2003 [pitchforkmedia.com], which contains sub-pop music flavors. Now search for the albums on edonkey networks with clients or FileDonkey [filedonkey.com]. It's amazing to see so many RARs and ZIPs.
Less fakes, more helpful comments, better hashing, etc... at least for time being.
Look at the Sales Figures (Score:5, Informative)
I couldn't find any year-end figures, but here's a look at the RIAA's own sales figures (pdf) [svenrox.com] for the first half of 2003. Notice that CD sales were down 14% from the previous year. Apparently the wave of lawsuits launched in April had no immediate effect on CD sales. However, look at the sales of CD singles. Up 162% ! ! !
Unless I'm crazy, the fact that music sales in album form are down and in singles form are up might indicate that people want to decide which songs they pay for, instead of being forced to buy a few good songs along with a lot of filler.
People have been trying to tell the record industry this for quite a while. With hard evidence in the form of actual money, do you think they still have no clue why their profits in recent years have declined? It's because of their own outdated marketing rather than "piracy."
According to this article in the Register [theregister.co.uk] music sales overall for 2003 fell only 0.8% below 2002. They credit a big rise in music videos on DVD, but the RIAA will no doubt be singing the praises of their legal crusade. Reminds me of Caligula ordering his army to fight back the incoming tide.
Canute (Score:3, Informative)
Canute [google.com]. Caligula [straightdope.com] was the sister fucker [google.com].
You're still helping the RIAA (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It never really stopped (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What?! You mean (Score:5, Informative)
We now return you to your regular uninformed slashdot comments.
Re:What?! You mean (Score:4, Informative)
Crypto P2P is next (article at the Register) (Score:1, Informative)
p2p usage is going up and it's going undercover!
Re:I haven't used p2p in months (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Socialists (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I haven't used p2p in months (Score:3, Informative)
I'll say no more, but there is a link to the mini-interview in my sig (or Journal).
Re:No shit (Score:2, Informative)