Underground is Good: RIAA
p2pnet.net News:- “America’s students are back to school, but it seems they have yet to learn their lesson about file sharing,” states Billboard in a story intro which might have come straight from RIAA president Cary Sherman.
“Despite the efforts of digital music services, record company litigation, ’spoofing’ technology and legitimate offerings at various universities, illegal file sharing on peer-to-peer networks has risen since college students returned to their high-speed Internet connections this fall,” it goes on.
The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has so far sued 6,191 people since September 2003, claiming its efforts are having a marked effect in reducing online file sharing via the p2p networks.
Billboard quotes p2p market research firm Big Champagne as saying the back-to-school months coincide with the typical spike of usage on file-swapping networks, with average simultaneous peak users totalling 5.7 million in the US in October, up from 5.4 million from the year before.
Big Champagne statistics for August and September in 2004 and 2003 confirm a significant rise, not decline, in file sharing. They were:
- August, 2003, 3,847,565 – August, 2004 6,822,312
- September, 2003 4,319,182 – September, 2004 6,802,130
These stats are further bolstered by two academic studies, one Canadian and the American.
The Canadian report states music lovers are undeterred by Big Four record label cartel attempts to sue them into abandoning file sharing on the p2p networks. The US study says the cartel’s sue ‘em all war notwithstanding, p2p file sharing is going strong.
“We routinely base lawsuits on multiple platforms and will evolve our strategies as circumstances change,” Billboard has RIAA president Cary Sherman saying.
It also says entertainment industry p2p scalp-hunter BayTSP claims one of the reasons Kazaa has been overtaken by eDonkey as the commercial p2p app of choice is because of the effectiveness of “interdiction companies” flooding Kazaa with spoofed, or fake, files.
But, according to Sherman – who’s also, “mindful of file sharing at smaller, under-the-radar networks that are harder to detect” – the RIAA is now targetting more and more eDonkey users and will, “continue to go where the problem is worst”.
While the RIAA issues patently misleading (to be charitable) statements about its successes against file sharers, people continue to exchange music files with near-impunity.
Some 61 million people in the US regularly share music online and the US academic study said:
“In general we observe that P2P activity has not diminished. On the contrary, P2P traffic represents a significant amount of Internet traffic and is likely to continue to grow in the future, RIAA behavior notwithstanding.”
And, “The risk tied to Internet file-sharing is almost zero despite entertainment industry claims to the contrary, says the Canadian consumer report.
In the meanwhile, Big Champagne ceo Eric Garland points out the p2p networks aren’t the only game in town.
Hot-swapping, which by-passes the Net altogether, is becoming more and more popoular, he says.
Under it, music fans swap files by physically hooking an external hard drive (or player, like an iPod) to a friend’s machine so they can ‘download’ songs, he told p2pnet.
In the Billboard piece, Garland is quoted as saying practices such as Hot Swapping thrive where young people live in close communities such as college campuses.
And in typically disengenuous RIAA reasoning, Sherman spins this as a positive development.
“The more that you drive (activity) underground, the better off you are overall,” he told Billboard.
“That means that people are aware that this is illegal behavior.”
And BayTSP ceo Mark Ishikawa says the rise of closed networks, “minimizes the damage because you’re not sharing files globally,” according to Billboard.
He avoids the vexing issue of how the files got on the hard drives in the first place, adding: “We would like to stop the internal trafficking, but it’s more difficult to monitor.”
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See:-
learn their lesson – P2P Use Increases as Students Return to Campus, Billboard, November 6, 2004
6,191 people – RIAA sues another 750, p2pnet, October 29, 2004
Canadian report – RIAA law suits are failing, p2pnet, November 3, 2004
US study – P2p study flawed says RIAA, p2pnet, October 28, 2004
November 9th, 2004 at 3:15 am
“We would like to stop the internal trafficking, but it’s more difficult to monitor.” No dude it’s Impossiable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
November 9th, 2004 at 12:55 pm
Everyone go to <your fav online retailer> and buy a 120GB HDD and an external enclosure. P2P networks? Ha! 120 gig is a *lot* of music!
November 9th, 2004 at 6:44 pm
Not as much as 250GB (And that does not include some stuff on CD-R/DVDr.
November 9th, 2004 at 7:19 pm
In reply to carrying around “hours” of music on portable harddrives and of course the iPOD…….If Microsoft along with content providers and hardware manufacturers are able to get DRM and TCP initiatives passed, all the “underground stuff” will more than likely come to a halt.
“Free” is good but, if consumers do not purchase the product what’s the point in manufacturing it.
Microsoft and content providers plan to “infuse DRM, TCP and other copy protections”, or what ever you want to call it into new
products. Intel is in the process of working on motherboard chipsets with embedded TCP implementations. Intel has already assigned a serial number to their microprocessors starting with the P3 and P4 that can be turned on or off. If the serial number feature is turned on what’s to say a user can’t be tracked while the system is connected to a network…. Need I mention the MAC address for the NIC installed in a pc………
It is just a matter of time before there will no be no “digitally clean” electronic devices. Looks a little scary to me! “Digitally dirty” to me means an invasion of privacy.
Take a look at the web sites below to see what’s in the pipe for digital content:
https://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/home
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/craig/11-06trustedcomputing.asp
http://www.synccast.com/services/default.asp?page=drm
Hackers may be able to thwart software based copy protections but, embedded hardware protection is near impossible. enough said!!!
November 9th, 2004 at 7:21 pm
In reply to carrying around “hours” of music on portable harddrives and of course the iPOD…….If Microsoft along with content providers and hardware manufacturers are able to get DRM and TCP initiatives passed, all the “underground stuff” will more than likely come to a halt.
“Free” is good but, if consumers do not purchase the product what’s the point in manufacturing it.
Microsoft and content providers plan to “infuse DRM, TCP and other copy protections”, or what ever you want to call it into new
products. Intel is in the process of working on motherboard chipsets with embedded TCP implementations. Intel has already assigned a serial number to their microprocessors starting with the P3 and P4 that can be turned on or off. If the serial number feature is turned on what’s to say a user can’t be tracked while the system is connected to a network…. Need I mention the MAC address for the NIC installed in a pc………
It is just a matter of time before there will no be no “digitally clean” electronic devices. Looks a little scary to me! “Digitally dirty” to me means an invasion of privacy.
Take a look at the web sites below to see what’s in the pipe for digital content:
https://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/home
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/craig/11-06trustedcomputing.asp
http://www.synccast.com/services/default.asp?page=drm
Hackers may be able to thwart software based copy protections but, embedded hardware protection is near impossible. enough said!!!
November 9th, 2004 at 10:34 pm
Ok, lets look at just those numbers (even though looking at all of them would be nice).
From August 2003 to September of 2003 they reflect a 112.3% increase.
From September 2003 to August 2004 they reflect a 158.0% increase.
From August 2004 to September 2004 they reflect a 0.3% decrease.
Now, what does that really tell us? Is the great big bad MPAA/RIAA having an effect on the use of p2p? Um, NO. All this tells us is the big bad monopolies tracking company has been unable to track the use of p2p on new programs that are masking usage and protecting users.
Yes, the lamer-level p2p programs that are in use are losing users because people are realizing the stupidity in using programs without protection and moving to more user-need-sensitive appz – nothing more.
If you follow the same ‘increasing’ projections, I’d venture to guess the real number is much more than they want to admit. These dorky estimates of Big Champagne remind me of the RIAA’s own numbers where they all reflected profit while they made claims of losses – it was quite funny.
Note to p2p tracking companies: You’re tracking ghosts of the past – the real users are never going to make it on your sad lists.
Note to people wanting to get off the tracked lists: If you have ‘trusted’ friends, download a program called ‘waste’ off sourceforge.net and make 4096 bit keys. Then ONLY allow people to join in that you trust with if you want to show up on one of these lists or not.
Just my normal 10 cents.
_-Jile-_