On a related note (see post below), lawsuits launched against individuals for illegal file-sharing appear to have tempered activity on the more popular peer-to-peer networks, new U.S. research released this week shows.

Nielsen/NetRatings, which tracks Internet usage, said on Tuesday it found a 41 percent drop over the last three months in the audience for Kazaa, the leading music file-sharing service.

Read more: Wired.

OMG. This is ruining the community. Now that people have stopped, there are less people, and less files, and less people to sue, and the years for it keeps going down.

It's just a damn scare!

DONT STOP SHARING! P2P Pride! (lol)

Ahhh finally freeing up some of the bandwith on the net... Take down all those illegal file sharers.....

I've stopped my P2P, but haven't stopped getting what I want. Just look elsewhere, not like people didn't trade files before Kazaa.

Remember that article a whiles back where it would take the RIAA to 2000 some odd years to sue every user. Guess what, they only have 59% of that left. Almost cutting the sueing time in half. No good, no good, however, I won't stop.

Thats a bummer, I hope kazaa holds out and doesnt die like Napster did. Napster was the best

Oh you can still get whatever the hell you want on the internet, no problem.

Besides, most of these "missing" P2P swappers are probably using kazaalite or something now. Or bittorrents. In fact, the advent of bittorrents probably explains the drop in Kazaa useage, not some stupid court cases.

You have an astronomically small chance of being the one sued. If you live outside the US, you have NO CHANCE I think.

P2P is not dead, is not dying and is not likely to die for a long, long time.

Everybody just chill out and keep swapping! In fact, try harder to be more generous!

In order to stop sharing, they'd have to shut down every method of communication we have. There are places that specialize in finding files, they either post the ftp or the ed2k hash or the irc channel or whatever is needed to obtain the file. file sharing has been going on long before napster or kazaa was even a dream and people have been trading mp3s since before most people even knew about them. If anything, I'd say that when RIAA first started bitching about mp3 was really when it got popular, before that you had to explain to most people what it was.

I cannot understand how you people can sit here and support piracy, the stealing of software, or any copyrighted media... Why dont you all stop being such cheap idiots and actually purchase this stuff...stop stealing...

I dont believe those numbers one bit. Before most people even knew the RIAA even existed Kazaa had about 3.5 million users online at a time, which usually dropped no lower than about 2-2.5 million depending on the time of day. That number hasn't changed since then. It still stays in the same number of users.

So, those numbers are no doubt, created, by embacil's.

Go P2P go!

Vassil3427, not everyone can afford original stuff, some are priced too high, thats why we have piracy. P2P isn't all about piracy. Think about it mate!

WHAT!? At the stupid, inflated, high price that they charge!?! No way!

I need a CD for £20 like I need a hole in the head!

Lower the prices, and then I will consider what you say.

Or make me pay a flat fee for downloading as much music and video as I can at a particular connection speed. That's fair.

I agree we are being crooks but the music industry is the ultimate crook.

Not just CD prices.. Remove the DVD region codes while you're at it.

vassil3427

How can you say that??? im not paying 25 odd euro for 2 maybe three good songs on an album thats otherwise filled with crap.

HERE HERE!

If the reason behind region codes isn't 100% pure greed, I don't know what is!

HERE HERE AGAIN!

How many times does that happen? How many times have you bought what you thought would be a good album, only to find that only 25% of it was any good?

Out of the many albums I've heard during my 28 years of life, only about 5 or 6 were good for 75 - 100% of the way through.



IF ANYONE FROM THE RIAA IS READING THIS, KNOW THIS:

WE WILL STOP CONNING YOU, WHEN YOU STOP CONNING US.


My own opinion, as a computer technician, systems administrator, network technologist and computer programmer is that very soon we will see a new, next generation of P2P program that will be untraceable, unstoppable, and invincible.

It will make Kazaa, Napster, IRC, Bittorrent and so forth look like the P2P version of Windows 3.1!

It will always get the desired file from somewhere. It will always find what you are looking for. It will always protect your privacy 100%, whilst being 100% fair to other P2P users, who need you as much as you need them. It will be a gestalt, a collective, a unified entity.

And that will just be version 1 of the program....

He's looking at YOU, Storm!

They don't really care if it's a group of people who do it. They wouldn't care that much. They got off at the fact that people who can't even turn on a computer know how to use Kazaa and download songs. I know quite a few people like that, actually. When P2P was introduced, no one cared, it was something that almost no one had and CD Burners hadn't come out (or they just came out). The speeds were agrivating 1x and some with 2x.

Now I believe, because people are ripping and using these in their cars, their home stereos, their headsets, etc, that they are pissed.

I have a 6CD changer in my car, 2 ~200 mp3 songs each cd, and thats 400 easy songs. Now, what about 6x200, 1200 songs easy, that become an even greater problem than above.

I also think that there should be no reason why any foreigner to the US should stop sharing, they are undoubtedly attacking Americans first, they don't even have an idea to get the world yet.

I live in the US, and I don't stop sharing.

Time will tell, and DONT STOP SHARING!

Did anybody mention that records sales have dropped even further than P2P sharing???

Yes, There is a news link on TS about that, I'm too drunk to look it up for you though.