File sharing is down: StatsCan
p2pnet.net News:- Slightly less than 38% of regular home Net users report downloading music in 2003, “down from a high of 48% in 2001,” says a Statistics Canada report released today.
“This may be the result of a highly-publicized campaign by the music industry against downloading music for free.”
‘May be’ is the operative phrase because is may also be that respondents aren’t being entirely up front.
“It’s very difficult to get reliable information on topics like music file sharing,” Big Champagne ceo Eric Garland told p2pnet a while back.
“And it’s particularly challenging in a climate of aggressive litigation, proposed legislation and what the RIAA calls ‘education’.”
The RIAA is, of course, the Recording Industry Association of America and it’s spear-heading legal attacks by its owners, the Big Five record labels (none of which has a Canadian base), on people who swap music online, trying to sue them into buying Big Music ‘product’.
“It’s difficult to extract good data from respondents on these things,” says Garland.
Every time we turn on the TV or open a newspaper, we’re reading about American ISPs being compelled to identify their clients in connection with copyright infringement prosecutions and, “It doesn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to think: ‘Here I am in my home and these researchers have called me on my home phone, so they know who I am and where I live’.”
Canadians can’t be sued, but there’s a false impression that they can, thanks largely to the blanket PR campaign instituted by the Big Five through their CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association).
In the meanwhile, “even assuming researchers’ best efforts to maintain my privacy, and given that they have no interest in identifying me, nonetheles, I may well imagine they could be compelled – just like an ISP – to identify me in conjunction with a civil litigation or, real horror of horrors, a criminal one,” says Garland.
Climate of Terror
The recording industry has worked hard to create this climate of terror, and it’s the industry’s explicit agenda to want people to be dissuaded from sharing files out of fear of the consequences that will result if they’re discovered.
However, even given that someone answering questions for a market researcher isn’t afraid of suddenly ending up on some kind of music industry sue-’em-all list, the majority will still be less than truthful in their responses, says Garland. That’s because, in addition to creating the climate of fear, the music industry also has given file-sharing an aspect of being somehow unwholesome – of being tainted.
“It’s not unlike getting someone to disclose information about behaviors that are considered offensive or about recreational drug abuse,” he stated. “People are uncomfortable discussing these kinds of things, and they’re just as uncomfortable talking about file-sharing with a stranger.”
July 8th, 2004 at 8:29 pm
what happens if the CRIA lawyers turn up at the office with a supena. they are going to refuse to hand the info over? i don’t think so.
July 9th, 2004 at 3:49 am
Filesharing down well maybe there’s not much that the Riaa has thats worth DL anymore!!!! Listen to the Radio lately?????
July 9th, 2004 at 4:18 am
wth are you blathering about? and learn how to spell … court would neber issue one in the first place.
July 10th, 2004 at 12:01 pm
Hmmmmm…I wonder if it is possible for the US DOJ to investigate and take control of the Big Five as Terrorists, under the Patriot Act, since they are doing the same thing as the bomb and run folks, only terrorizing kids and old folks into debt or litigation by exhortion…