Just 9% of US Internet users were P2P music pirates in Q4 2010

[Emil]

In late October 2010, LimeWire closed down its file sharing services, months after a federal judge sided with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and found the P2P service liable for copyright infringement. The NPD Group believes this is one of the primary factors responsible for a recent decline in P2P use for pirating music, based on 5,549 January 2011 surveys completed by US consumers.

The percentage of the US Internet population using a P2P file-sharing service to download music fell from a high of 16 percent in Q4 2007 to just 9 percent in Q4 2010, which is when LimeWire ceased its file-sharing operations. The average number of music files downloaded from P2P networks also declined from 35 tracks per person in Q4 2007 to just 18 tracks in Q4 2010. Nevertheless, the number of downloads still range from just one or two tracks to hundreds. NPD estimates there were 28 million P2P users downloading music in Q4 2007, compared to just 16 million in Q4 2010.

Limewire was used by 56 percent of those using P2P services to download music in Q3 2010, but fell to just 32 percent in Q4 2010, since the P2P service was only available through October, according to NPD's Music Acquisition Monitor. At the same time, other P2P service usage rose. FrostWire, a popular alternative to LimeWire, was used by just 10 percent of those sharing music files via P2P in Q3 2010, but this number increased to 21 percent in Q4 2010. The BitTorrent client µTorrent increased from 8 percent usage to 12 percent in the same time period.

"Limewire was so popular for music file trading, and for so long, that its closure has had a powerful and immediate effect on the number of people downloading music files from peer-to-peer services and curtailed the amount being swapped," Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for NPD, said in a statement. "In the past, we've noted that hard-core peer-to-peer users would quickly move to other Web sites that offered illegal music file sharing. It will be interesting to see if services like FrostWire and BitTorrent take up the slack left by LimeWire, or if peer-to-peer music downloaders instead move on to other modes of acquiring or listening to music."

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https://www.techspot.com/news/42975-just-9-of-us-internet-users-were-p2p-music-pirates-in-q4-2010.html

 

[Zilpha]

You know what stopped me from that sort of thing? Everything becoming available on places like Amazon for a reasonable price. This is what consumers have always wanted - now I can buy the song I want without having to get an entire album, it's in a digital format that I can put on all of my devices and enjoy, and I don't have to even get up from my desk to do it nor spend extra money on other tracks I don't even want. I don't even want to risk P2P giving me viruses or who knows what.

 

[Lurker101]

The real fallout from the Limewire closure is pretty obvious though. Those who just wanted an easy, non-exploitative way of aquiring music will have moved on to online stores and digital distributors, who have been forced to evolve towards the consumers desires by digital piracy.

Those who are just intent on stealing will have very quickly found themselves another way, or will have simply given up.

 

[Guest]

people aren't pirating music anymore because all the music coming out is garbage. Kesha? Trash. All rap music? Beyond garbage. Everything with robot voice? Horrible.

Music today is brutally bad. Good think A Perfect Circle has a new album coming, and Tool, otherwise there'd be nothing new to listen to ever again!

 

[captaincranky]

I don't actually have a problem with buying the CDs I want. But, I'm from a different era. I just bought, "Year of the Cat" by Al Stewart". (1976) (Who, I'm sure you're muttering). Six bucks, plus 3 for shipping. Beats free 96Kb MP-3 and the need for a reformat. As unusual and rare as it may seem, every track's a winner. (IMO. obviously).

Music today is brutally bad. Good think A Perfect Circle has a new album coming, and Tool, otherwise there'd be nothing new to listen to ever again!

You might be looking in the wrong place. The "country power pop" that's coming out of Nashville (IMO) is decent from time to time. Again IMO, Taylor Swift is a whole lot more listenable than Keisha.

I also saw a Springsteen ripoff on Kimmel last nioght, didn't catch the name though.

 

[Lurker101]

He is right though. For the most part, and for the past half decade at least, has been monumentally horrific.

 

[Guest]

Grooveshark rocks, things like that makes me pay for music..

 

[Guest]

I found this quite interesting really. Frankly, I don't see the shutdown of limewire really affecting piracy that much. Sure one piracy ridden client service was taken down but for what? Sense the begining of the internet companies have just been fighting a war they are lossing more and more. Not saying companies shouldn't protect their digital copy rights but the way they go about it is so ineffective. Oh well seems companies will just keep lossing tones of money and we all will keep reading these articles like oh that again.

 

[Guest]

Anyone griping about how music has all gone to hell over the last [insert whatever length of time you care to here] is demonstrating a little trait I like to call laziness, because that's exactly what it is. Yes, modern rock radio is full of garbage. Yes, most pop is banal crap. Yes, all the things you're complaining about are almost certainly completely valid. But suggesting that there isn't any good music being made (or that there are lone isolated bands still producing it but everything else is crap)?

All that shows is that the complainer in question hasn't made any reasonable effort to go look for the good stuff (hint: you probably won't hear it on the radio). Music that a very broad audience is aware of tends to be music aimed at a very broad audience (fancy that!), and when you average out the intelligence of vast swathes of the population you get a pretty stupid answer - is it any wonder then that most of the material aimed at the broadest possible audience sucks?

Things weren't really any better in the past mind you - people prone to complaining about how music sucks now often lionize past eras, but the truth is the ratio of crap to quality was every bit as bad back then; we just don't remember all the inconsequential chaff the record industry churned out 30/40/etc years ago, as they only play the good songs from those eras on classic rock stations. People with bad memories or who didn't actually grow up in those time periods listen to "hits from the 80s" now and then bemoan how much worse things are these days, but they aren't experiencing all the flash in the pan garbage the 80s churned out that would actually play on the radio during the 80s, they're listening to isolated high points and then comparing those to selection of music that still includes all the crap that people won't remember 20 years from now.

But guess what? We live in the bloody information age. In the past, there wasn't much you could do to find music that the major labels decided you didn't need to hear about, but you really have absolutely no excuse anymore to bemoan how "all music is awful now" and then back up your point by complaining about shitty pop and other mainstream garbage like that's irrefutable evidence that all music sucks.

News Flash: Music that everyone has heard of is a mere fraction of what is out there, and not representative of the whole. We have the internet now, we don't need the major labels to learn about new music; radio play and promotional deals are aimed at the ignorant (and lazy) masses. When there are websites like Pandora, Last.fm, and Grooveshark out there, if you can't find good new music then you obviously haven't bothered to look. I'm a music snob who despises the overwhelming bulk of all music that has ever been produced and even I wouldn't dream of suggesting there are "no good bands these days", it's a ludicrous assertion. Sure, most music sucks, but there is simply so much music being produced, even the mere fraction of the whole that doesn't suck still works out to a very large pool of possibilities.

You have no one to blame but yourself if you're blithely unaware of the excellent modern music that's out there, considering you're posting on an internet forum about how modern music sucks - clearly you have access to the resources that would show you what you're complaining about is stupid. Yes, pop music sucks, but it always has - expecting the crap that record companies foist on the general public to be decent is like panning for gold in your own shower, in terms of unwarranted optimism.

 

[Scott8090]

Well thats quite a comment...Not that its miss placed but damn. A Well Said Wall of Text .

 

[Lurker101]

Quite a comment indeed, but a wall of text by a mere, nameless guest?

tl;dr

 

[TorturedChaos]

I don't think is as much of an issue that w/o Limewire p2p music piracy dropped significantly (although I'm sure anti-piracy groups will take those numbers and run with them....) but its an issue of music being so much more readily available on online sources for free to listen to or download for a reasonable price.
Between sites like Pandora radio and Groveshark that let you listen to music for free (or a rather small fee for "Premium" services" and being able to download just songs you want from a handful of sites - piracy isn't as great as a temptation for me.

 

[Guest]

Just like the cable company had shown me the door by hiking my rate, I have found a new world out there beyond RIAAA would have the compassion to comprehend. one thing for sure is after ripped off by the record and cable companies for so long, I have forever left them for good.

 

[example1013]

Schools sometimes set up their own P2P networks that are closed off from the rest of the internet. I sense non-response bias in all of these surveys.