Some interesting things have been happening lately with music downloading. Today, the digital tracking and security firm BayTSP released its monthly stats on peer-to-peer music and film downloading and reported that the number of users on the Kazaa network averaged 2.7m in May, down from 2.9m in April. Further, rival network eDonkey averaged some 2.2m users daily – pretty much steady with the networks figures for the previous month.
At the same time, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry is as proud as a dog with two tails, announcing that the number of infringing music files on P2P networks is down by 30 per cent on June last year. The IFPI believes this is largely due to their hyper-litigious, sue-anything-that-moves strategy, and undoubtedly there are many who have been scared off by such moves. The Federation has sent out some 23m instant message warnings to music downloaders in nine countries. That would freak me out a bit.
