by Will Knight
The threat of legal action and hefty fines has done little to stop internet users around the world trading music and video files, according to a new study of network traffic.
The vast majority of shared files are copyrighted music or video, making the sharing illegal. In an effort to stamp out infringements, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) started a legal assault on hundreds of alleged US file-sharers in September 2003.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) followed suit in March 2004, announcing plans to sue prolific file-sharing infringers in Germany, Denmark and Canada. Some reports have suggested that these legal attacks have caused file-sharing to fall dramatically. But the study conducted by network monitoring company Sandvine, based in Ontario, Canada, reached a different conclusion. “There’s been no decline in the number of people file-sharing,” says Chris Colman, European managing director for Sandvine.
Overall growth
The company’s research indicates that the proportion of total net traffic used for peer-to-peer sharing has declined only slightly in the US over the last year, from 70 to 65 per cent. Furthermore, file-sharing in Europe has not dropped at all — it now accounts for 70 to 80 per cent of net traffic. And internet usage in both the US and Europe is still growing, meaning that file-sharing is growing overall.
However, Sandvine’s study does reveal that many US file-traders have moved away from the most popular service, Kazaa. File-sharing traffic via Kazaa has dropped from 90 per cent of the total to just 20 per cent. Users in the US have shifted to alternative networks, in particular eDonkey.
Colman believes this is because the RIAA has so far only sued users of Kazaa. The RIAA has also sought to undermine Kazaa in particular by uploading thousands of bogus music files, in an attempt to frustrate users. In Europe, Kazaa usage has dropped from 70 to 20 percent.
Deep analysis
Sandvine was able to measure the changing patterns of file sharing directly because it already provides hundreds of internet service providers in the US, Europe and Asia with technology that allows them to monitor the type data travelling across their networks.
The company’s hardware monitors passing “packets” of data and determines what type of information they are carrying. This is done by a process known as “deep packet analysis”, which looks beyond the packet’s header to find identifying characteristics. This reveals whether a packet is part of an email, a web page or a file-sharing transfer – and, in the latter case, which network the file was shared over.
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