P2P file sharing on the rise in Britain
p2pnet news view Politics | P2P | Music:- Levels of illegal filesharing “are not declining, despite significant media coverage on the issue,” and the use of “non-P2P methods to acquire music illegally have grown significantly in last six months, and are expected to keep growing”.
The quotes come not from a p2pnet post, but from Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s BPI (British Phonographic Industry).
Moreover, “P2P still remains most important source for illegal downloads in the UK,” it admits.
The statements arrive in a BPI survey organised to support renewed efforts by Vivendi Universal (France), Sony (Japan), Warner Music (US) and EMI (Britain) and the major Hollywood studios to have the UK version of their Three Strikes and you’re Off The Net business plan implemented as law.
“The growth in other, non-P2P methods of downloading music illegally is a concern, and highlights the importance of including a mechanism in the Digital Economy Bill to deal with threats other than P2P,” says the BPI’s Geoff Taylor, pictured on the right demonstrating one of the association’s new voice recording instruments.
He is of course referring to the practice of simply passing (and mailing) discs around, to WASTE, through trusted friend-to-friend bulletin boards, FreeWAN cells, Freenet-type sites, physical and WiFi sneaker nets of various kinds, sticks, hidden and disguised sites, and so on.
Good luck with that, Geoff.
P2P file sharing in the UK has remained steady during 2009, “but usage of web-based, non-P2P methods of downloading music illegally — such as from overseas MP3 pay sites and from newsgroups, blogs and forums linking to cyberlockers — are growing considerably,” says the report.
Last month, 1,012 people aged between 16 and 54 who said they were downloading or filesharing music on P2P networks “or from other web sources” were among .3,442 UK respondents, says the BPI, going on >>>
The survey showed a net increase in the use of web-based or “non-P2P” methods during the last six months, with the biggest increases in use coming from overseas unlicensed MP3 pay sites (47%) and newsgroups (42%). Other significant rises included MP3 search engines (28%) and forum, blog and board links to cyberlockers (18%).
Other findings highlighted that nearly half (47%) of users of P2P sites and software used them as a source for acquiring music on at least a weekly basis, with a third (31%) of respondents who obtain music illegally doing so on a daily basis. Whilst some other sources – such as overseas MP3 pay sites (72%), newsgroups (70%) and forums / blogs (54%) – are used more frequently, P2P accounts for a much higher volume of illegal downloading with an average of nine tracks per month, compared to 4.9 for overseas MP3 pay sites, 5.3 for newsgroups and 6.0 for forums / blogs.
When questioned on their future plans, current users of unauthorised services reported that they actually intended to increase their illegal activities in the coming six months. Use of P2P sites and software showed a modest predicted net increase of 5%, but this paled compared to a significant upswing across the board in the future usage of alternatives to P2P, with overseas MP3 pay sites (+40% net) and newsgroups (+32% net) showing the highest increases of all.
Expect to see the ’survey’ quoted as fact by the lamescream UK press corpse, and by politicians fronting for Hollywood and Big Music.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
BPI – Growing Threat From Illegal Web Downloads, December 18, 2009
and so on – DarkNets: not tomorrow, but here and now, April 2, 2009
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December 19th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
I don’t personally fileshare, but I know a few people who do, and the reason they give is that it is easier to use p2p to get songs than it is to buy them. If they try to purchase on the slow rural connections they lose the page, timeout or the download stalls and they waste time trying again. With fileshare they just request the songs and eventually the packets are collected and they have them. I think the best thing is for p2p to be legalised and for the music industry to share songs in this way, with customers having the choice between lower quality free and top quality paid for content. That is if their connections are up to it. Until the UK have decent, affordable, ubiquitous broadband then fileshare is the only possible solution. IMHO.
chris
December 19th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Where is the donations button?
December 19th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
a) Logically i’d expect P2P activity to continue rising as i would expect to find broadband internet usage increasing in overall terms in the UK.
b) Logically the earliest adopters of broadband internet are the wealthiest, leaving the poorer to get onboard later. This fact too, is likely to pump up the P2P trend.
c) Logically again, more younger people are getting personal access to the internet, as the numbers of new and second-hand laptops grows, with more terminals per household. Expect an obvious increase in mostly non-earners unlikely to be able to purchase music.
No shit Sherlock i’d say. It is all too easy for the BPI to make the point about P2P.
Lets look at some solutions…
a) Broadband providers could sell music (eg Spotify) within their broadband packages and incentivize this by boosting the bandwidth/usage limits on new installations with music packages.
b) Offer free music trials or adversing-supported services so poorer users have a chance to experience new music services. ISPs clearly know who these people are. They are the ones who buy the cheapest ADSL (virtually free with a phoneline) or opt for the basic cable package.
c) Spotify et al, need to offer family packages allowing kids to have their own playlists within an overall premium account. This style of package is the one that should be pushed through ISP resellers.
No shit Sherlock – equally simple to figure out how to fix the BPI’s problem. Unless of course ur a politician of music industry exec (apparently).
The UK government need to stop criminalising internet users and instead set targets for ISPs to develop their business around creative content. Forcing ISPs to monitor their customers will force the low-cost providers out of business. An alternative is obviously to wave this monitoring requirement for any ISP that offers access to music/film packages along the lines i have outlined above.
Finally the BPI do need to recognise that the money-supply ain’t what it was and need to look at how the industry can be streamlined. Too many middlemen still in the business which is also bad for the creators. I don’t think it’s right or fair to just blame others for your own problems -politicians please note.
December 19th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Further to…
Chris above me also makes an excellent point.
I should add therefore, that any successful paid-for music distribution business, eg. Spotify, will use P2P technology while also providing the benefits of streaming.
After all, would you pay for something that doesn’t work?
December 19th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
I’ve actually downloaded more “illegal” material in the last two months than I have in my previous 15 years of internet use combined. I don’t why the Government / Music industry is so surprised. Surely it’s obvious that filesharers will download everything they can before the draconian Three Strikes law comes into place.
December 19th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
“Levels of illegal filesharing are not declining, despite significant media coverage on the issue” BPI
Surely they can’t seriously expect that media coverage will cause a decline in downloading. It’s like expecting an advertising campaign to cause a decline in sales.
SHEESH! They must be dumber than a box of rocks.
Bring on the limp wristed “three strikes” law if you want (OOOOH! I’m really scared, please don’t hit me with your wet sponge).
If the BPI weren’t so blinkered and narrow-minded they would realise that, as ideas go, it’s even lamer and less scary than the failed RIAA lawsuits campaign in the USA.
The party’s over guys, the “good old days” are gone for ever. We “the consumers” have seen the light, and we are not going to let you profiteer from hijacking our culture and then selling it back to us. Get over it.
December 19th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
The industry jerks are going to really be bawwwwing once P2P fully crosses the anonymity threshold in the coming years. It IS going to happen, there is no stopping it now.
This 3 strikes crap is a violation of our rights and will be fought against on ALL fronts. I can see things getting real messy for the proponents of curtailing freedom in the name of profit. There are people out there, some of them crazy and violent, that won’t take kindly to being disconnected from their online life, and will suddenly have lots of free time to take their frustrations out in the real world.
BTW I think Steve Farr’s ideas are total garbage, leave the ISPs alone. If they don’t want to push corporate media on their customers, so be it. Penalizing them by legally mandating they THEN spy on their customers is going to put any ISP out of business that doesn’t go along with the music industry schemes, and flies in the face of the free enterprise system. And, as he said, bringing yet another middle-man into the business (the ISP) isn’t going to help anyone. This I agree with, except that ALL middle-men will be pushed out by technological advances and the free market, much like what has happened with journalism already.
Let the ISPs be in the ISP business, let the music services be in the music business. Having the gov’t write laws, regulate, and micro-manage online music distribution and it’s relation to ISPs is going to be nothing but an inefficient bureaucratic nightmare, just like everything else the gov’t tries controlling.
December 20th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Surveys are not reliable evidence.
December 20th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
@ RW: ‘Surveys are not reliable evidence’
They’re not evidence at all.
Cheers!
December 30th, 2009 at 2:05 am
I have well over 5 TB of media now that I share in person with people I know, no need for the web to do that. Yup, hard drive to hard is the new trend to share. Note that 5 TB of media can last one a life time, and costs about $500 USD for the hard drives.