RIAA threat may be slowing file swapping, according to Nielsen/Netratings

[wessman]

RIAA threat may be slowing file swapping
By John Borland, Staff Writer, CNET News.com
July 14, 2003, 5:02 PM PT
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-1025684.html

The record industry's plan to sue individuals who trade songs online has caused a precipitous drop in the use of file-swapping applications, according to one Internet ratings service.

Nielsen/Netratings, a company that monitors Web traffic and desktop application use, said that use of top file-trading applications such as Kazaa and Morpheus have fallen by about 15 percent since the end of June. On June 25, the Recording Industry Association of America announced it was planning to file what could be thousands of lawsuits against individuals who trade copyrighted music online.

"I would definitely say it's not a coincidence that the numbers fell that far," said Greg Bloom, senior analyst with Nielsen/Netratings. "A drop this significant probably has some kind of external cause."

Although Nielsen/Netratings' numbers are provisional, and falling Net traffic in the summer can be explained in part by vacationers going offline, the statistic is bound to be closely watched by those with a stake in the copyright debate.

A significant element of the RIAA's plan is to persuade large numbers of file traders that putting copyrighted material online is too risky. The number of lawsuits filed, while potentially huge, will still be miniscule compared with the hundreds of thousands or millions of people who use peer-to-peer networks every day.

File-trading companies question Nielsen/Netratings figures. StreamCast Networks CEO Michael Weiss, whose company distributes the Morpheus software, said his team hasn't seen a perceptible drop in the past several weeks.

"We're seeing something completely different," Weiss said, noting that their logs show about 250,000 unique visitors a day. Those visitors even appear to be staying online longer, based on the number of banner ads each user sees per session, he added.

Neilson/Netratings numbers found that Morpheus' figures had dropped 15 percent from 272,000 unique visitors in the week ending June 29, to 231,000 unique visitors in the week ending July 6.

The Kazaa software, the most popular file-trading application, also saw usage fall 15 percent, from 6.5 million to 5.5 million unique users that week, according to Neilson/Netratings.

Both measurements are extrapolated from a sample pool of about 50,000 home Internet users in the United States. By comparison, usage of the popular AOL Instant Messenger application dipped 9 percent over the same period, Bloom said.

Despite denials that the RIAA warnings are having much effect on traffic, most file-swapping companies are scrambling to put new privacy features into their software.

StreamCast Networks plans to release a new version of its Morpheus software on Tuesday that will let users upload and download files through proxy servers, a venerable if imperfect way for Internet users to mask their identities online.

RIAA officials have said they are already gathering information about people offering large numbers of copyrighted songs online, and plan to start filing copyright infringement lawsuits next month.


Related News:

P2P's little secret July 8, 2003
http://news.com.com/2100-1029-1023735.html

Piracy and peer-to-peer July 7, 2003
http://news.com.com/2010-1071-1023325.html

Labels aim big guns at small file swappers June 25, 2003
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-1020876.html

Get this story's "Big Picture"
http://news.com.com/2104-1027-1025684.html

Copyright ©1995-2003 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.

[serrebi101]

lol, that's because everyone switched to other aplications!

[Jelsoft]

Reasons for the drop:

People have used another P2P software instead of Kazaa.

But the most likely reason:

Neilson/Netratings numbers found that Morpheus' figures had dropped 15 percent from 272,000 unique visitors in the week ending June 29, to 231,000 unique visitors in the week ending July 6.

I hope the analysts realize that Independence Day lies between June 29th and July 6th.

Most people would be out on vacation and won’t their computers would be turned off!

[Lucian]

The RIAA wrote that. AOL TIME WARNER FOOL!

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/interne...eut/index.html

http://www.cjr.org/owners/aoltimewarner.asp

[beardedwonder]

Well you've got to admit that they're becoming more inventive!

[mojo-ris-in]

Originally posted by Lucian
The RIAA wrote that. AOL TIME WARNER FOOL!

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/interne...eut/index.html

http://www.cjr.org/owners/aoltimewarner.asp

They don't however own Nielsen/Netratings which is where the stats come from. If you want you can read the entire report directly from them.
http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/
The report there is in PDF format.

[Lucian]

Yes but anyone can pay any think tank to come up with any statistics.

Microsoft does this all the time, thats why you get these ridiculous reports of Windows being more secure than Linux, or Windows being cheaper than Linux.

[mojo-ris-in]

Originally posted by Lucian
Yes but anyone can pay any think tank to come up with any statistics.

OK. 1st of all Nielsen is not a think tank. Their job is to gauge the habits of people from every age bracket worldwide. They in turn sell the information to various companies which use their reports to improve their services and target advertising. They are a part of VNU, another worldwide publishing company that is in direct competition with AOL/Time Warner on many fronts, so I have a hard time believing they will do much to help TWC/AOL. As far as whether or not usage on Kazaa has gone down, well it has and you can go see it for yourself. Before the RIAA ultimatum Kazaa had a regular user base of well over 4,000,000. I have yet to see it over 4,000,000 since then. Now, like the Nielsen report says, that doesn't account for people that have gone on vacation and don't access their pcs, but it is still a significant decline.

As far as the other networks go, it would seem to me that a lot of Kazaa users would check out other networks as a way to circumvent the RIAA and that would, in turn, increase their numbers but who knows. Some people are laying low until this blows over and some are using private P2P which can't really be gauged like the others. So that being the case, It wouldn't surprise me at all if usage on the public P2Ps has fallen off a bit.

[Theinfamousone]

I imagine they are maybe decreasing the traffic less than 1%, but it's a long cry from stopping it all together. And they haven't stopped me, so that's all that matters.

Even if they are decreasing traffic, it's going to pick up again unless they can keep it up indefinately, which...I doubt they will, or can.

[tons of fun]

I cannot accept their b%@sh^t!!

:devil

[ROMANTICGUY50]

Originally posted by tons of fun
I cannot accept their b%@sh^t!!

:devil

I agree. May the RIAA Rot in Hell .I have not stopped filesharing and won't, So screw them.

[begoodbebad]

Originally posted by wessman
RIAA threat may be slowing file swapping
By John Borland, Staff Writer, CNET News.com
July 14, 2003, 5:02 PM PT
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-1025684.html

The record industry's plan to sue individuals who trade songs online has caused a precipitous drop in the use of file-swapping applications, according to one Internet ratings service.

RIAA APPROACHES PRECIPITOUS DROP AND PREPARES TO TAKE A GREAT STEP FORWARD

(just my fantasy version of the headline)


btw Lucian you are boring my ass off with your incessant injection of Linux fanboy boredom in every thread whatever the subject.

[Brycen257]

I agree that the reason why traffic may have dropped slightly
(note- slightly) is most likely because some people have decided to switch to other file sharing applications because of worries that the RIAA is monitoring KAzaa and Morpheus most closely . I refuse to believe there is any noticeable difference in total file sharing activity across the internet. Until I see statistics that show a decline in use of all file sharing applications (not just the 2 or 3 monitored by the RIAA and these figures are verified to be correct by the networks themselves , I refuse to accept such an obvious piece of RIAA propoganda. The information in the alleged poll is certainly not representative of the usage by the file sharing community at all.

[Theinfamousone]

You want statistics, go to the news article that was just posted, 10% up or 15% down and you'll see some hard facts from slyck. It looks like it is dropping, but I imagine that that's just because people aren't as likely to leave their file sharing apps open now.