Illegal P2P File-Sharing Hits Record High In December

This week brought the news that legal digital downloads of music are climbing to all-time highs, with the week after Christmas smashing all kinds of records. Now comes news that while legal downloads are way up, so are illegal downloads. New data from BigChampagne says that December saw a large jump in P2P file sharing, with an average of 6,978,715 users online simultaneously at any time in the U.S.. In 2004, that number was approximately 5.5 million and in 2003, it was just over 3.2 million.

Looking at numbers around the world, the average is climbing as well. According to the latest data, in December 2005 there was an average of a whopping 9,554,298 on P2P servers simultaneously. In 2004, the average was over 7.5 million and in 2003, it was approximately 5.6 million.

Related Posts

1. Irish Record Industry Sues ISP for Illegal File-Sharing on its Network
2. UK ISP, Record Industry Join Forces to Fight Illegal File-Sharing
3. Illegal File Sharing Continues to Grow Despite Legal Action
4. Finnish net pirates fined over illegal file-sharing
5. PPUK – Why the Price of Justice is Too High for File-Sharing