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P2P traffic dipped in September
File-sharing edges downward--are the RIAA's combative tactics working?
With the music industry on a two-pronged assault against peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing networks and their users, P2P traffic dipped slightly in September, according to figures released today from tracking firm BigChampagne.
The total number of simultaneous unique users on peer-to-peer networks averaged 6.75 million in the US in September, a small drop from 6.87 million in August, which was the second-highest tally BigChampagne has recorded.
Worldwide, after hitting an all-time high 9.6 million average simultaneous users in August, traffic edged downward to less than 9.3 million in September.
Peer-to-peer traffic usually rises in the summer but hasn't gone down in the fall since BigChampagne began tracking it.
It remains to be seen if the music industry's efforts to combat file-sharing are working.
In recent months, following the US Supreme Court’s decision in June in MGM v Grokster, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has stepped up its legal efforts against both file-sharing services and their users.
Citing the Grokster case, in which the court found that the service could be sued for inducing copyright infringement for acts taken in the course of marketing file sharing software, the RIA sent cease-and-desist letters to a number of file-sharing services.
Since then, WinMX has shut down and eDonkey's top executive said it plans to do the same.
Total music sales continue to decline, however, falling 1.9 percent to $13.2 billion in the first half of the year, down from $13.4 billion in the same period in 2004, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), a global music industry trade group.
That was largely due to a 6.3 percent year-over-year dip--down to $12.4 billion--for music sales on CDs, tapes and other physical formats.
Digital music sales tripled in the first half of 2005, rising to about $790 million in the first six months of 2005, up from $220 million in the same period in 2004.
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