Arrr! The Music Pirates Are Still Here

Ernesto
February 7, 2011
90
envisional,
research,
statistics
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A new study that surfaced last week came to the incomprehensible conclusion that two thirds of all BitTorrent traffic is likely to be related to copyright infringement. Even more shocking, it seemed to suggest that music piracy on public BitTorrent trackers is a thing of the past. But is this really the case? We’re afraid we have to disappoint the music industry once more.

A few days ago the piracy research firm Envisional published an elaborate study into (unlawful) file-sharing traffic on the Internet. Commissioned by NBC Universal the researchers combined older Internet traffic estimates with their own research on the use of various file-sharing platforms.

Although we’ve been quite critical of such studies in the past, especially when they’re funded by the entertainment industry, we have to admit that this is one of the best reports we’ve seen to date. Those who are interested in the use of BitTorrent and how it compares to other file-sharing services should definitely have a read.

The researchers clearly know what BitTorrent is all about, and although several assumptions and methodological choices paint the outcome to a certain degree, there’s not much to complain about in the data they present. Unfortunately, however, even solid data can be easily misinterpreted in the press.

Over the last days several readers have pointed us to an article that appeared in two of the top tech news outlets, Wired and Ars Technica. The article – “Where have all the music pirates gone?” – is written by one of the best tech reporters we know, but in this case the conclusion is way off.

The article zooms in on Envisional’s breakdown of content types that are “most popular” among BitTorrent downloaders. For this analysis the Envisional researchers looked at the 10,000 most downloaded files on the PublicBitTorrent tracker in December 2010.

As it turns out, pornography and films are in the lead with 35.8 and 35.2 percent respectively. Music on the other hand can be found at the bottom of the list with a measly 2.9 percent. Sounds plausible so far, but the article failed to mention something that clearly affects the outcome.

Most popular torrents?

top torrents

The overview of the 10,000 “most popular” torrents is based on a snapshot of the number of leechers. In other words, the rank of the most popular torrents is based on the number of people people who were downloading a file at the time the tracker was polled, not those who already finished it (including seeders).

This obviously results in a huge bias since the average video file of BitTorrent is much larger than the average music file. Based on a sample of millions of torrents we found that the average video torrent is 1.73 GB while music torrents average at 214 MB. So, video files are 8 times the size of music files.

Larger file sizes mean longer download times, and this is one of the explanations why there are far less music files in the top 10,000. Movie torrent simply take longer to complete so there are generally more people listed as leechers. If the top 10,000 was based on actual completed downloads the percentage of music torrents would have been much higher.

We’re of course not arguing that more people download music on BitTorrent than movies, but based on the above it seems likely that the difference between the two categories in “actual” popularity (completed downloads in a given time) is being misrepresented. One thing’s certain, the music pirates have definitely not vanished from BitTorrent yet.

The original article does point out correctly that worldwide, the music industry is doing a much better job at presenting alternatives to piracy than the movie industry. Whether music piracy has gone down because of it is a different question though, and one that at least needs some comparison data in order to be answered correctly.

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Nicke

Wow, I never though pornography was so popular.
- Anonymous
  
  It certainly has a lot of leechers on the PublicBT tracker, which surprised me as well.
  
  Also noteworthy. Many authorized releases (linix distros, Vodo content etc) use their own tracker and are not included in the results. Choosing the PublicBT tracker for an analysis somewhat biased also, but I left that out.
  - http://documents.envisional.com/docs/Envisional-Internet_Usage-Jan2011.pdf david price
    
    1. Interesting fact: the vast majority of that pornography in the top 10,000? It was asian in origin. Most of it pushed on Chinese bulletin boards or similar. My guess is that it’s one of the easiest ways for Chinese users to get porn: it’s very restricted on licensed Chinese sites; places like YouPorn that are massively popular in the west are likely blocked by the Great Firewall; and bittorrent offers a relatively hidden way of accessing porn for Chinese users.
    
    2. We took a look at things like linux distros outside of PublicBT (Fedora, etc). The numbers of active leechers were fairly low on the swarms we could find and they wouldn’t have entered in to the top 10,000 if they had been tracked on PublicBT. I think the point is that while there are legit uses of bittorrent, most of the data flowing via bittorrent is pirated (or porn, and most of that is probably pirated too).
    
    We did a similar survey of OpenBT in Dec 2009 when that was the largest tracker. Again, we looked at the top 10,000 torrents (out of 1.9m in total compared to 2.7m in total for PublicBT in Dec 2010). In that case, again only one piece of legitimate material was identfied in the top 10,000 – that *was* actually a linux ISO for Linux Mint. But it’s rare to see any piece of content like that crop up amongst the very popular content.
    
    3. You might find this interesting:
    http://i.imgur.com/lOPSf.jpg
    It’s a word cloud of the words found in the top 10,000. Note all the video: DVDRip, 1080p. Xvid, HDTV. etc etc.
    - Straw Bear
      
      Sorry not wishing to be petty or anything but what a stupid word cloud.
      
      Concentrate less on presentation and more on facts m’be?
      
      As far as music goes, the thing of having anything i want at the push of a button kinda kills the old buzz of hunting for stuff for me. If anything piracy has killed the thrill of being a once music geek. I’ve hardly downloaded any music in years now.
    - david price
      
      Read the full report if you want some facts. There are plenty of them in there, and not a word cloud to be seen.
      http://bit.ly/bandwidth-report
    - http://anoxona.myopenid.com/ ANoXoNA
      
      Selective facts. BUT NO evidence.
    - Ipiratedyourmom
      
      Kind of like every argument to support piracy then.
    - http://documents.envisional.com/docs/Envisional-Internet_Usage-Jan2011.pdf david price
      
      What sort of evidence would you prefer? Serious question. What facts would you need to convince you?
    - Amos
      
      Petty and outmoded indeed, continue to fall behind you bitter narrow minded whelp. Those days are gone, the entire point of todays file sharing is to be quick and efficient, so you don’t have to waste time blindly hoping to find things on the internet. You amaze me. I can’t believe you took the time to insult something gifted to the community.
      
      that word cloud is cool.
      unplug your Ethernet.
    - harry krishna
      
      i was hoping you would be list some of the better chinese sites
    - Kid
      
      rabbit krishna!
    - Anonymous
      
      You should also keep in mind that there are people around who download music like I do. Due to past years of legal issues over music I would almost never download music from BT. Instead I always find a private source for a true one to one download where no third person can watch.
      
      I have never been that big on infringing music. During the earlier years I simply did not bother. That changed when I found an ultra private source for the Top 100 popular songs per year from 1960 to 2005. That is 4600 MP3s in all and which fixed my music oversight. I also got MP3 versions of CDs I own.
      
      These days I would only download the rare few and there are many sources including Google. My point being that the music downloads of the cautious wont be tracked and maybe that also helps to explain where the music pirates went.
    - Anonymous
      
      You’re right on #2, but that’s because you chose leechers for the top 10,000. I assume you would agree that this is causing a “slight” bias.
      
      Why this choice? Might it be a good idea to factor size in next time or at least rank popularity based on the entire swarm?
      
      I think your estimate of legitimate content in the top 10k is fairly optimistic to be honest. Porn is copyrighted too you know ;)
    - http://documents.envisional.com/docs/Envisional-Internet_Usage-Jan2011.pdf david price
      
      I chose to sort by leechers because sorting by seeds produces too many fake files (often promoted by having thousands of seeds). Looking at swarm size might be a better way to go – someone else suggested that so we may try that next time, though I think the seed count on fakes might still affect things. (We still weeded out 100-and-something fakes while getting the top 10,000 – which is effectively the top 10,138 or thereabouts with fakes removed).
      
      You’re right on the porn. As we made clear in the report, the copyrighted status of porn can be, to coin a phrase, ‘murky’. We know a lot of adult studios want to sue anyone who even so much as look at a pirated DVD cover while some others are happy promoting their stuff via bittorrent. Plus, there is amateur stuff out there and who knows what the copyrighted status of an Chinese amateur porn compilation is…
      
      My best guess would be that at least 80% (probably more) of the porn is copyrighted and infringing so yes, the amount of copyrighted stuff would go up to maybe 95% or so. But rather than use that as a figure – which would probably have got more headlines – I wanted to make sure the report had something solid and rigorous and wouldn’t have people discounting it by saying “oh yeah, but they just counted all that porn…..”
    - wildstallion
      
      And did you include the BitTorrent traffic for World of Warcraft, Ijii, gPotato, FaceBook, etc?
      
      To say that there isn’t a significant legal use for it is disingenuous. Yes, there are a lot of illegal uses (I don’t understand the porn part myself) but legal uses are spreading rapidly for game companies.
    - http://documents.envisional.com/docs/Envisional-Internet_Usage-Jan2011.pdf david price
      
      Blizzard use bittorrent for WoW. It’s not used by all of their users. When they ship out an update via BT (which is only every now and again), it’s taken up and distributed and then the traffic for that fades away. How many WoW users employ bittorrent? 1m? Say 6m at most, 50% of all their subscribers. Six million users downloading an update maybe once a month. File sizes vary but let’s estimate 500MB a go (see http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_mirrors). So once every month, six million ppl at most download 500MB of data. I’d estimate six million people download a film (700MB or more) every day on bittorrent.
      
      Facebook use BT to update their servers. Yes, that’s a legit use. As a portion of all BT traffic? Miniscule.
      
      I’m not disputing there are legitimate uses and never have. The point is that legal uses as a proportion of overall traffic are very small.
    - http://anoxona.myopenid.com/ ANoXoNA
      
      YOU ARE THE ANTi-PiRATE.
      
      Quote envisional ” Our anti-piracy team, led by Dr David Price ”
      
      So your company envisional , will gladly harvest my ip , give it to a media company who will sue me ?
      
      You would. Even based on false data.
    - http://documents.envisional.com/docs/Envisional-Internet_Usage-Jan2011.pdf david price
      
      No, we don’t do that. We perform research and analysis for companies who want to understand what’s going on with regards to digital piracy. This report is a good example. Personally, I’d prefer not to be called ‘anti piracy’ but that’s how most people in the industry understand this world.
    - http://anoxona.myopenid.com/ ANoXoNA
      
      So if a company pays you to harvest the ip’s of people sharing content , licenced by them ?
      That is a good example.
    - Lynx
      
      Using “active leechers” to look at Linux distros isn’t going to work. It will fall into the same trap as the music. Last distro I download, I was getting 3Mb/s download speed. Leechers don’t last long like that.
- jpayne10
  
  Humans love Films. Humans Love a Sinful date with Porn. Combine & it is the “perfect 1/2 sin”
- liquidmonkey
  
  i would agree that music is waaaay down in terms of piracy, especially in countries where SPOTIFY is offered.
  spotify is single handedly reducing p2p sharing of music, its crazy!
  
  and yes, there are more digital alternatives for buying music / mp3′s.
  
  so the important question here is, WHEN WILL THE MOVIE INDUSTRY LEARN?
- http://www.mko.gen.tr/ mko
  
  The Internet is for porn
http://twitter.com/p2jack P2p Jack

wow… I dont pirate porn…. I watch on pornhub and the likes…
music I rarely pirate – thanks to spotify
movies – I download the retails only…
appz – download anything I want – I rarely pirate… but music is very rare for me…
http://disqus.com/ Rob8urcakes

These so-called researchers literally have no idea how to investigate their info, let alone analyse and present it as factual.

Thanks Ernie, you do us proud yet again with an excellent piece on TF (hey! what’s that weird brown spot on the tip of my nose?)

Seriously though, you’d think after all this time the guys involved in serious research would do a proper job in researching rather than just applying daft conclusions to incomplete data. It’s as if these guys conclude God exists because it rains in Canada more often than Hawaii.

I hope Envisional didn’t get paid cash for this flawed crap. And I also hope it doesn’t get any serious consideration by governments Worldwide who need to change our law of copywrong.
- Ipiratedyourmom
  
  “Applying daft conclusions to incomplete data”
  
  … That should be written on TF’s banner!!!
  - Wit
    
    Or it could be Fox News’ new slogan. Fair and Balanced doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
- http://documents.envisional.com/docs/Envisional-Internet_Usage-Jan2011.pdf david price
  
  Thanks Rob. Appreciated. Can you tell me how we should have done a proper job in researching? What conclusions have you got on the overall amount of infringing content found on bittorrent or elsewhere?
  - Anonymous
    
    I think he would like you -assuming you are one of the researchers- to address the concerns voiced in the article we just read.
    - david price
      
      I was the main author of the study and tbh, it didn’t sound like he wanted me to address any of the concerns but to spout invective. But I’ll address the main concern anyway, which is that music may be more popular than it appears from the split of categories because file sizes are smaller and hence leechers may be fewer as they will dropped off swarms more quickly. There may be something to this. However, music is much more split into genres than films. There are only a few films released each week but there are many, many more music releases. People look for advice and reviews from trusted sources (from Pitchfork to NME to indie labels to… etc). So there is more activity on blogs and forums which cater to a particular sort of music. It’s easier for these kind of sites to up something on Hotfile or FileServe than to seed it on bittorrent. As such, the popularity of music overall is split between a large number of different releases – another reason why there might not be so many music titles in the top 10,000.
      
      I also think a good deal of music piracy has shifted to other piracy avenues (they are smaller files than your average film as the TF article points out so cyberlocker downloads are easier than bittorrent; Gnutella is still there for music) and, perhaps more importantly, there are far more legitimate outlets for music online that are quick and convenient for users. Spotify in the EU; Grooveshark everywhere; Last.fm; Pandora; iTunes; heck, even Soribada in Korea.
    - Anonymous
      
      If movie files are 8 times bigger in general they drop off way sooner, so they have to be much more popular to make it into the top 10k. This is a flaw, but one that was declared in the report so it’s okay with me.
      
      All I wanted to say that the data say little about the actual popularity. If you want to measure that you’ll have to look at the completed downloads, which nearly all popular trackers aren’t reporting anymore.
    - http://anoxona.myopenid.com/ ANoXoNA
      
      David i think you are a dik , Anti-pirate troll who is paid to criminalize people who share.
      
      Are you also trying to infiltrate the staff here , in the hopes of getting info on site admins ect.. ?
      
      That’s what you and your team are paid to do.
    - http://documents.envisional.com/docs/Envisional-Internet_Usage-Jan2011.pdf david price
      
      Yep. I am social engineering Ernesto here to give us positive press on TF. You have seen through my cunning plan.
    - http://anoxona.myopenid.com/ ANoXoNA
      
      First off , sorry , I shouldn’t have called you a dik.
      The reason I did , was because of the way anti-pirates treat people.
      They try to form laws to criminalize the poor for sharing , persicute , slander people who share.
      .
      
      Don’t try to play innocent.
      Especially by dodging the accusation by making fun of it and also twisting it.
      I didn’t say anything about “positive press”
      
      FACT you are paid to gather Selective intelegence.
      FACT the people who pay you , want torrent site admins locked up.
      FACT the people who pay you , want filesharers locked up.
      FACT you are a paid Anti-Pirate.
      
      But you ovbiously wan’t me, to be like you… Selective with the facts !
    - Ipiratedyourmom
      
      To ANoXoNA:
      
      First off, sorry, I should have called you a dik a LONG time ago.
      The reason I should have is because of the way you treat people.
      You try to form justifications for your ways while persecuting and slandering people who disagree with sharing.
      
      Don’t try to play innocent.
      Especially by dodging the accustation by making fun of it, or by twisting it.
      
      FACT In almost every country in the world, sharing copyrighted material without permission of the rightsholder is unlawful
      FACT In said countries, the penalties for such behaviour are well known and include large fines and potentially jail time; if you’re going to engage in said behaviours, don’t cry like a little girl and stamp your feet saying “IT’S NOT FAIR” if you get caught
      FACT People who share generally do not pay the rightsholder for the material they acquire; at the very least, not at the point they acquire it and
      FACT You sir are a bona fide douchebag bottom-feederette
      
      But you obviously want me to be like you… selective with the facts!
    - http://anoxona.myopenid.com/ ANoXoNA
      
      @ Ipiratedyourmom
      
      Infinite Goods Should Be Shared
      
      That’s all i have to say.
    - Ipiratedyourmom
      
      @ ANoXoNA
      
      What planet are you from? I want to come and play in this world where nothing has any intrinsic value. It sounds GREAT.
    - http://anoxona.myopenid.com/ ANoXoNA
      
      @ Ipiratedyourmom
      
      Filesharing is NOT a criminal offence in the UK. It is a civil matter.
      It’s “unlawful” not “illegal” .
      
      But YOU (anti-pirate troll) wan’t to criminalise millions of people , just so that a few rich companies can maintain the status quo , of old business models , that no longer work.
      Sorry but the cash cow is dead.
      
      *one last response…*
      
      I am from the same world you are from.
      Difference is in how we percieve it. Millions percieve it n the same way as i do.
      
      When you can have Infinite copies of something… it should be available to all.
      Copyright is just a way to make sure poor people who can’t afford it … never get it. Of course primarily it is used to controll income and generate profit , from an item that can be Infinitly reproduced at little to no cost. But doing that , just disadvantages the poor.
      
      .
      .
      . . . . . . . . . . .PEOPLE . . . . . . . . . . .
      . . . . . . . .SHARE LIKE FUK . . . . . . . . .
      .
      .
      If you could copy and share a copyrighted cancer cure ?
    - Ipiratedyourmom
      
      @ ANoXoNA
      
      1. I never said it was illegal. If you bothered to read what I wrote, I said it was unlawful. Don’t try and correct me when I was not wrong in the first place.
      2. “But YOU (anti-pirate troll) wan’t to criminalise millions of people…” – *sigh* read your own writing. It’s not a criminal matter dimwit, it’s a CIVIL matter (remember?). And I don’t want to criminalise anyone, it just REALLY annoys me when people do something they KNOW is unlawful – let’s be honest, anybody who claims they don’t know that in this day and age can only be lying – and get caught, they suddenly think it’s justifiable to go “well, I don’t agree with the law, so I shouldn’t be punished”. The law is the law. Break it, get caught, man up and take the consequences instead of whining on a message board
      3. “Millions percieve it n the same way as i do” – and? Millions perceive it in the same way as I do. Who’s to say who’s right?
      4. “Copyright is just a way to make sure poor people who can’t afford it … never get it” – do me a favour with your class war. Copyright is there to make sure someone who creates something gets their due.
      
      I’m done arguing with you now. I sincerely hope you enjoy getting whatever you want for free over the internet, and hope the day when you land back in reality with a bump comes soon.
    - Anonymous
      
      And then there are people like me who have just given up on current music. I think the last album I downloaded was Eminem’s latest. Before that, I dunno.. it’s been at least a year though.
      I download music less than I go to the movie theater. Only when something decent comes out (which isn’t often). Alice in Wonderland, Megamind & Toy Story 3 were the only 3 movies I saw in a theater last year.
      
      Now I download TV Shows like there is no tomorrow. Full seasons sometimes, sometimes just the newer episodes if I missed them.
    - DocGerbil100
      
      Based on Ernesto’s words and your own comments here, I was all set to offer congratulations on work that at least attempts to be objective. Now I’ve actually read the report itself, I’m not quite as impressed.
      
      In addition to the huge biases generated by only sampling leechers on just the one BT tracker, I note another, equally serious, issue.
      
      Your data sample covers a grand total of one solitary day in mid-December. The run-up to Christmas, when there’s more new, copyrighted content on the market than at any other time of the year – and arguably far more people who have spent all their money too soon and are facing a week on holiday, without new media content for themselves.
      
      Or in other words, quite possibly the single busiest time of the year for media-piracy.
      
      I’m quite prepared to believe that piracy is the dominant usage for these distribution-routes, but I think your data are a vast distance away from being any kind of genuine, representative example of that. :/
    - http://documents.envisional.com/docs/Envisional-Internet_Usage-Jan2011.pdf david price
      
      Understood. But when we’ve looked at this at other points, the trend is pretty similar. We did another analysis the year before and the figures were pretty close to what we show in the report. And actually, 12 December lacks a lot of the television content that often dominates bittorrent – many of the main US shows have finished for the christmas break at that point.
      
      The work’s fairly time-consuming. Identifying 10,000 torrents takes an awful lot of hours, so it’s not something we repeat every week but we’ll do an update at some point and try a different week but there are always going to be some seasonal variations.
Kitlope

Music is alive and well… even us in the niche flac community.
- `politux
  
  I definitely prefer my music to be lossless.
  
  Cheers
- Straw Bear
  
  Would some of the flac users make files available on mp3 if they’re rare, rather than catering only for bats with high bandwidth? Nothing worse than having to d/l something 4 times as big just to rip to mp3 for my walkman.
  - Kitlope
    
    Too bad. I don’t do mp3
Momo

Ernesto, good analysis.

Another point would be that music pirates may find it more convenient (and safer) to use a filelocker to download music, because it’s simpler to get small files that way. Bittorrent is more appropriate for large files, such as video.

So even if music downloads have really decreased on Bittorrent, it may not be because music piracy has decreased, but because the music pirates have moved to other downloading methods.
- Anonymous
  
  Good point…. I personally use Bittorrent only to download video files anymore, and use Rhapsody streaming for my music needs.
  - Gh
    
    I use megaupload, mediafire and fileserve for video files.Haven’t looked back on torrents in years.
Loki

haha, at first glance one could think the only thing people do on the pc was watching porn, but at a closer view this stat is probably very inaccurate. how to differ between the categories if its done by a bot etc. ?
Guest

NO porn?
Gh

“Although we’ve been quite critical of such studies in the past, especially when they’re funded by the entertainment industry”

Yes because you only endorse the much more credible piracy studies that claim it actually supports the Industry and artists.
Rouafw

Yet another biased study.. What a waste of time. Great article TF, this clarified a lot (though i hadn’t heard of the study before reading your article)!

“One thing’s certain, the music pirates have definitely not vanished from BitTorrent yet.” — What do you mean, “yet”? Why would music pirates ever ‘leave’ BitTorrent as a source for music? It is a fast and easy way to download music. At least I certainly won’t, as long as the massive amount of content keep getting uploaded (which I hope will continue). Hehe.
Zippo

I always find it somewhat surprising that some people actually still pay for porn.
Kjkljokj

just make more site related to torrenting and fille sharing, its more uncostly to us than all the money big media put up to cry wolf
Pingback: Music piracy way down, study shows
Mattias

To all the commenters complaining about the report being bad, biased etc; re-read the article.
“we have to admit that this is one of the best reports we’ve seen to date.”

The faulty conclusions are not necessarily from the report.
“The article – “Where have all the music pirates gone?” – is written by one of the best tech reporters we know, but in this case the conclusion is way off.”

As with all more or less scientific reports you have to introduce definitions, assumptions and adopt certain methods, and rarely do these completely satisfy even the researchers themselves. I bet if you read the actual report there would a complete section on methodological issues and limitations of the conclusions.

About the point that music piracy is declining; I think this might be the case for _public_ torrent trackers. But as stated above there are filelockers, spotify and other, often more convenient, ways to find the music you want.
Ash Ketchum

Since music archives have small file sizes, it is easier to download them using file hosting sites. So, it is definitely possible that the number of people sharing music through bittorrent is decreasing.

Besides, try downloading some popular album (or one having a popular song) using bittorrent and you will notice that it takes longer to download because some “pieces” keep failing hash checks. You are at 90% and suddenly it will drop to 50% because of those fake pieces. This is of course due to anti piracy organizations who were hired to “protect” those albums. Anyway, it is easier and lot faster to download such albums from file hosting sites (what you guys like to call “cyber lockers”).
Ash Ketchum

Since music archives have small file sizes, it is easier to download them using file hosting sites. So, it is definitely possible that the number of people sharing music through bittorrent is decreasing.

Besides, try downloading some popular album (or one having a popular song) using bittorrent and you will notice that it takes longer to download because some “pieces” keep failing hash checks. You are at 90% and suddenly it will drop to 50% because of those fake pieces. This is of course due to anti piracy organizations who were hired to “protect” those albums. Anyway, it is easier and lot faster to download such albums from file hosting sites (what you guys like to call “cyber lockers”).
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Sean-Mcintier/1146574107 Sean Mcintier
  
  The only time I ever had this problem was when the hard drive I was downloading too was going bad and each downloaded part was being written to a bad sector.
  
  Popular music downloads are usually completed within 3 minutes.
Guest

Anyway even if we were not sharing music and movies we would still not give money to the corporation of parasites. We are done with them. So this is pointless. They lost.
Pingback: Arrr! The Music Pirates Are Still Here | LatinoTorrent.com
harry krishna

i get my music from torrents – keep seeding
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Krlll

I rarely download music much anymore,I have replaced all the stuff i used to own,the stuff i bought.All those CDs/DVDs are scrathed/destroyed.
They could have spent maybe an extra penny on more durable plastic to coat the CDs to make them more durable but they didnt.They chose profit,they chose greed.
Now I download sets etc legally for free.
I always pay for games when i can.
I spent maybe 200eur over xmas just on Steam alone.
I have 1000s of games in ISO format with a folder called “cracks and patches” to streamline the installation process.
Now I am skint again and pirating whatever I want.
This is me,,this is one example of a pirate,this is countless others.
An old story but I believe most people would buy if only for convineince if they could afford/justify the cost.
So mindless corporate scum,please do your best to completely eliminate piracy……most productive method I can see is providing teengares with at least 200eur a week pocket money or maybe a brain transplant for those that can afford it but have decided you dont deserve a penny.
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Captaincraig

Ernesto is spot on with his reasoning (movie files are 8 times bigger in general they drop off way sooner) however I would also agree with the comments who mention that music pirates have moved onto different platforms.
I don’t think for one second that music piracy has been reduced, it’s as popular as ever but I certainly think the use of torrents for music is slowing down. There are plenty of other alternatives now such as the many direct download mp3 sites that keep popping up or the VK.com/firefox extension or spotify etc as mentioned.
Piracy is an ever evolving medium, as one method dies a new one is born…..
Mmustangx

Ernesto and David both make valid points, as a site admin though I have to side with Ernesto on this 1 though due to the fact I simply looked and seen the significant traffic the Music category gets on our site. Thanks to both gentlemen though for taking the time to properly research and bring forth logically accurate numbers using a rational method of calculation unlike many previous ‘authors’
XxNWOxX

hahaha that’s great. pornography’s the top one
This

the truth
…
everyone downloaded already what they really want , the rest now is fluff.
Bot_mde

Well ISPs these days are being forced to shut down on customers who are caught downloading copyright material mainly music through bittorent !

But the same guy can download through rapidhsare or megaupload anyother filehosting sites without no trouble … in these cases the file hosting sites are held liable for allowing the upload or storage of copyrighted stuff!

Even if u include the seeders i dont think its gonna topple pornography and movies nos!
Foff

Everybody has certain tastes and when you have pretty much collected all you can ever listen to naturally your music downloading will slow down. I have downloaded gigs of music but have tired of it because I have all I need. I see that I am not alone,

All of these studies seem flawed. Music is shared in many more ways than torrents. Movies, TV and books and elearning stuff is much larger so of course on a bit by bit basis other types of sharing would appear larger.
J.

I do agree there are fault in the data collection of this study. However, another possibility for the lower numbers is because there are more legal(-ish) alternatives to pirating music.

Spotify, Rdio, Last.fm, Groveshark, Pandora, Slacker Radio, etc all provide free or low-cost access to an “all you can eat buffet” of LEGAL music.

With these services – even having to pay the same as a new CD each month, is there any reason to risk getting your IP address tagged in an illegal torrent and possibly having to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars if you are found guilt of IP theft?
- Been Here Before
  
  OK, I’ll bite. These radio-like streaming services have many limitations, some practical (like you need to listen with an Internet-connected device), some designed to discourage piracy (limits to what music can be selected for immediate playback in a particular order), and some a little of both (lossy formats and player restrictions reign). That means what I can listen to, how/when/where I listen to it, its format and quality are all dictated by the streaming services and the labels that license their content to it, and content availability isn’t guaranteed in perpetuity. Meanwhile, services which deliver static files (“downloads”), authorized or not, provide music in a variety of formats including lossless ones, music I can keep forever and listen to anywhere, anytime, without any of the contrived restrictions of the streaming services.
  
  The streaming services are certainly quite convenient for a not-insignificant number of people who feel such things are worth paying for, and it’s nice to see both the music and video industries finally getting on board with this decade-plus old technology that they could’ve been monetizing all along. Although how much they’re on board is open to question; the labels continue to pull shenanigans behind the scenes, like still trying to get royalty rates that would make it impossible for even the most well-funded streamers to continue operating.
  
  I believe that someday the “cloud” will be much more ubiquitous, capable, content-rich, and freer of restrictions than it is today, and radio-like streaming from it will be more enticing option for many who currently prefer downloads. I also believe that this REAL “all you can eat buffet” won’t be crafted by the content & copyright industry, but rather by those who oppose it. The beginnings of it are already here.
MC

Stuff like this makes me wonder if TF is looking to branch out into bittorrent consultancy or something. Not that theres anything wrong with that.
Ettore

At least this puts a ding in RIAA’s arguments … they can claim whatever they want, but those BT numbers show their plight as not so bad.

Also important: user’s connection speed. I would bet lower bandwidth countries have a high bias towards certain media. Those types of correlations matter. I remember once reading an article, something to the effect of “Children with console gaming systems are 500% more likely to complete highschool’ ignoring the fact that people WITH consoles come from rich families / neighbourhoods. Good survey, anyways, At least the data seems to be right for what they looked at.
Caroline

I know a site (by the way, one of my favourite torrent sites) http://www.torrentoff.com , where music torrent never slow down!
Me

Psst….STFU and LET the industry think piracy on bittorrent is declining!
http://twitter.com/techlooser Tech Looser

Piracy as a whole is here to stay. it is not going anywhere for a long long long time to come. You can fight it, ban it, then maybe try to regulate it but you cant stop it.

Napster, Limewire, Kazaa. DC and now Torrents. They will keep on banning and the internet community will keep on innovating.

regards,
http://techlooser.com
Anonymous

I just cant imagine anyone actually “paying” for music. Seriously.

http://www.anon-tools.tk
http://www.louigiverona.ru Louigi Verona

It is also good to know that throughout the years people got interested in many other things which now compete quite effectively with the music interest. Games, online and offline apps, delivered to various phones, pads and other devices do take the time and interest away from music.
Also, people download and watch video concerts.
And finally, most people I would think already have the music they like. The amount of new music which gets into active torrenting will always be not so high, not only because the releases are fresh, but because not all of them have the fanbase to get them. But my main argument here would be that most music fans have downloaded albums of their favourite music ages ago and there is simply no reason to do this over and over unless your hard drive died or you lost your mp3 player with all your non-backed up collection.
Johnny Galatikitis

I rarely pirate. I rather download stuff instead – it’s free and it’s legal. You know – like light spectrum free&legal – I don’t steal information, just copy it.

I’ll just copyright my name so every time you try to contact me I’ll get a hefty sum of money since you STOLE MY NAME!
Johnny Galatikitis

I rarely pirate. I rather download stuff instead – it’s free and it’s legal. You know – like light spectrum free&legal – I don’t steal information, just copy it.

I’ll just copyright my name so every time you try to contact me I’ll get a hefty sum of money since you STOLE MY NAME!
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anonym

a lot of my friends listen music from grooveshark/spotify, etc

and i don’t know why are music companies so happy anyways- we already learned not to support the distributors and buy crap in their cd stores but download the music instead and support the artists themselves directly, either via donating or their site merch., etc
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