By D. PARVAZ
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Monday, January 5, 2004

The number of people downloading and sharing music online has dropped significantly since the recording industry began filing lawsuits against alleged copyright violators last fall, according to a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

About 18 million people admitted downloading music online, a 50 percent drop since the previous Pew survey, done in spring.

But whether those numbers capture the true behavior of music downloaders and file sharers is another thing.

The Pew study, released yesterday, didn't differentiate between paid online music services and free, file-swapping applications, but comScore data (which accompanied the Pew survey) indicate the number of file swappers is dropping and paid online services (a relatively new development in the world of online music) are growing at a steady pace.

Peer-to-peer, non-paid, file-sharing music sites seem to have taken the greatest hit, but some industry insiders say that survey numbers don't tell the whole story.

"I completely discount it all," says Wayne Rosso, former president of Grokster, which provides file-sharing software, and current CEO of Optisoft SL, the proprietary network for other file-sharing applications.

Rosso criticizes the Pew methodology because, he says, people lie, especially if they think file sharing will get them in trouble.

Pew Internet Project Director Lee Rainie says survey participants were more likely ignorant than dishonest. And he admits it would have been better if the questions distinguished between paid online music services and peer-to-peer file swapping. But, he says, that wasn't done because of the problems it would pose.

"People are confused and don't know what's going on with copyright laws," Rainie said.



Angie Beining, 19, seems to know what's going on with copyright laws. She says she used to be an avid music file swapper but isn't anymore.

"I used to swap songs online all the time. ... I hardly bought any CDs for a couple of years," she says, adding that now she doesn't do it "like ever, because I hear they're suing people." It's not worth the trouble, she says, but that doesn't mean she's started to buy songs online, either.

"Now I just rip them off a friend's CD or computer, or I just buy the CD myself." She knows that ripping CDs poses copyright issues, too, but says, "It's impossible to track."

Rainie says the recorded decrease in downloading was consistent among all survey groups, regardless of age, race, gender and household income. "I'm pretty confident that we've captured a reality of online life here."

Rosso disagrees.

"Our revenues aren't dropping, and I promise you Grokster's aren't. Nobody's been crying the blues," says Rosso, who adds Optisoft had 3 million unique users this year. "All these guys are really full of baloney."

Well, not quite, says comScore, whose numbers agree with Pew.

ComScore analyst Graham Mudd said its data were gathered with a program installed on 1.5 million computers, which allowed the firm to directly track the applications used.

Data gathered by the Virginia-based firm say things aren't looking good for file-swapping sites. The number of computers running any one of the four surveyed file-sharing applications is down (KaZaa is down 15 percent, Grokster 59 percent, WinMx 25 percent and BearShare 9 percent). These figures reflect the number of people running the applications on their computers, not necessarily the use of them.

"Without a doubt the number of people simply going to these sites or actively visiting them is on a downward trend," says comScore Senior Vice President Dan Hess.

But it's possible people were running other file-swapping applications that were not tabulated in the study, Graham says.

Grokster, the company with the greatest drop in users, doesn't have an official spokesperson. KaZaa did not respond to an interview request.

Paid music sites are a different story all together, Hess says. ComScore data show that the numbers for sites such as Napster and Apple's iTunes are on an upswing.

"Those numbers, in all likelihood, are continuing to grow, and some of that has to do with starting from scratch," Hess says.

Indeed, the customer base for some of these legal downloading services, such as Seattle-based RealNetwork's Rhapsody, continues to swell. About two weeks ago, the company announced its second quarter of double-digit growth, this last quarter taking it from 250,000 subscribers to 350,000 for both its Rhapsody and RealRadio products.

"That's a dramatic increase from where we started the year," Rhapsody spokesman Matt Graves says, adding that the increase in numbers is on track with other tech music services such as broadband and home WiFi setups.

ITunes is one of the major players in the online music game, but a spokesperson declined to offer specific numbers for how many users were registered. ComScore, however, tracked the site as having 1,380,000 visitors in October and 2,663,000 in November.

MusicMatch.com also is reporting a steady increase -- the number of accounts has increased by 41 percent from November to December. A representative declined to give specifics.

The drop in non-paid downloads that Pew found might not continue, as the battle between record labels and the file-swapping community is just beginning. Legal judgments, such as last month's decision by the Dutch Supreme Court that KaZaa is not violating copyright laws for music or movie files swapped using its software, continue to shift the landscape of the online music world. (The U.S. version of the KaZaa lawsuit is pending in a Los Angeles district court.)

"This is definitely not the end," Rainie says.

See the complete report online: http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=109

Link:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/pop/155330_downloads05.html

here's what I consider the big deal in this article

"ComScore analyst Graham Mudd said its data were gathered with a program installed on 1.5 million computers, which allowed the firm to directly track the applications used. "

Do these people know that this program is installed on their machines or is it a spyware thing that they are oblivious to? If so how do they deal with the number of people who might have a p2p program but have caught their spyware crap and deleted or disabled it. Isn't that going to affect their numbers?

Here's the way it pans out, there are 3 kinds of liars:

damn liars
politicians
statisticians

That does seem a questionable survey method. Datas not reliable. The artical does make one intresting point through. If the sue 'em all campaign is having any effect, its because it scares people away from notworks. Not because it educates them in the legal and moral issues of copyright law. Teenagers just do not and can not understand the reasons for copyright law fully now. The idea of making it illegal to do something that takes five minutes and costs nothing just doesn't make sense.

Good points, goldenpi and captdunsel.

People in surveys often do lie if they are afraid their responses could be traced back, and everyone is just as confused about copyright law now as they were two years ago.

I notice something very odd with the results of this latest Pew survey. KaZaa usage is reported to be down by 15%, but WinMX is reported to be down by a whopping 25%. Yet, over 95 percent of the lawsuits have been filed against KaZaa users. I am not aware of anyone having been sued for sharing files using WinMX. This doesn't make sense, on the face of it.

It will be most interesting to see what the next Pew results will show, in light of the fairly recent Verizon victory against the RIAA.

People are giving me a lot of copies of CDs lately. I think trading CD copies may be the new form of file-sharing. Amen. Death to RIAA.

Who wants those crappy old MP3s anyway? Go for the gold.

Pew left out the 12 to 18-year olds.

Mystery solved.

" ComScore analyst Graham Mudd said its data were gathered with a program installed on 1.5 million computers, which allowed the firm to directly track the applications used."

Maybe what they're seeing is an increase in the number of people who became smart enough to eliminate spyware, or simply a decrease in those stupid enough to let it in in the first place.

"Indeed, the customer base for some of these legal downloading services, such as Seattle-based RealNetwork's Rhapsody, continues to swell. "

Kind of reminds me of what AOL was saying ahile back. AOL was saying that there subscriber base was increasing but they weren't saying how many people were leaving. In fact it was found out that more people were leaving than what was thought.

There are many factors why the numbers could be going down but not as much as they say they are. One article I read from the Internet Herald Tribune said that file sharing was down by as much as 75% on any given day. Now I find that very hard to believe.

The numbers don't add up cause the RIAA is not a honest organization. The RIAA fudges the numbers for there own benefit. They say that the legit music services are the greatest thing since sliced bread when in fact it's not. They use lawsuits to force people to buy music. Now the RIAA is quietly starting to get into the concert arena. So instead of paying a $100 a ticket, you'll be paying double that. These are the facts that are hard to ignore.

let understand one thing clearly, which nobody ever mentions.


REGISTERED USERS are users who are REGISTERED , doent mean they bought anything.

i am registered in all the services , havent bought shit, and never will.

who is funding comscore study, can anybody clarify on that

Hey,

Let the record companies and politicians believe this...it will give idiots like Hatch less firepower to try to push his stupid bills, and the RIAA and labels less whining power. Their sales will continue to erode as, overall, people just aren't buying their substandard product. In the mean time the rest of us will continue to use p2p in a low profile manner, like we always have, and do what we want.

On a side note:
Has anyone noticed the huge amount of "Greatest Hits" albums released at the end of this year? It's absolutely amazing how many acts released these. I'm theorizing that this is the main reason for any surge in sales, since the rest of the new stuff is too poor in quality to purchase.

airider -- Most of the labels delayed as many new releases as possible until the last quarter.

The numbers are down because people are more clued up and getting their files by other means. When everyone (60 million people) is on anonymous encrypted P2P will they suddenly anounce that they have killed P2P and stopped people downloading music illegally and that all their campaigns worked?

Of course they will!

Bah,

More smoke and mirrors from the statisticians. I just rip and rip and rip. Then download more and more, while giving the RIAA the 1-finger salute.

I did notice a lot of "Greatest Hits" ads. $18.99 and up still? Cassettes $15.99? Hilarious.. I downloaded half the shit while watching the commercial.

"Has anyone noticed the huge amount of "Greatest Hits" albums released at the end of this year?"

It's not this year, it's every year. The fourth quarter is always the biggest quarter of the year.

"Most of the labels delayed as many new releases as possible until the last quarter."

They're not delayed, they are scheduled for the fourth quarter. It's the same as every year.

I hear ya George,

It's easy to say you have a rebound in one quarter if you hold all your releases until then.

Here's a partial list of "Greatest Hits" all released within the last quarter:

Bruce Springsteen
Eagles
Pearl Jam
Johnny Cash
Sheryl Crow
Bon Jovi
Counting Crows
No Doubt
Neil Diamond
Alan Jackson
R.E.M.
Red Hot Chili Peppers...

These are all in the top 50 selling albums at deepdiscountcd.com. There are twelve here. That's ~25% of the best selling RIAA albums this quarter at this site. I guess when your new stuff isn't selling worth a damn, you dust off the old stuff put it in a pretty new package and try to push it. The problem with this is you only have so much "old" stuff and when this runs its course, then what do you do, big record labels, to make us think you are still having a rebound in sales???

I stopped using KAZAA because the pop-up ads were annoying as hell and RIAA flooded the servers with fake mp3s that they created themselves. The fake mp3s have about 15 seconds of the song looped over and over for a span of 3 to 5 minutes making it appear to look like a legit mp3s. How do i know its RIAA? because some of the songs weren't out on the market yet, yet they were actual snippits from the real song. The servers that serve these files are the best of the best and everyone chooses the best speed which is the trap.

Well, obviously the statistics were made up. The Pew study conveniently left out a nice slice of the target population and didn't consider dozens of factors, such as encryption and the move to other P2P applications.

As long as they think they're winning- they should stop bothering us. Let them think they have control again. It works to our advantage. As George said- Mitch Bainwol is our best weapon

:-:~ Phantom

"I guess when your new stuff isn't selling worth a damn, you dust off the old stuff put it in a pretty new package and try to push it."

Again, this is nothing new. It's the same old story. Also, if you want to check the top selling albums overall go to billboard.com. Places like amazon and deepdiscountcd seem to skew towards a yuppie type demographic.

"The problem with this is you only have so much "old" stuff and when this runs its course, then what do you do, big record labels, to make us think you are still having a rebound in sales???"

They repackage the old stuff again! And they always throw in a couple previously unreleased tracks to force the hardcore fans to buy. But overall, catalog sales have fallen a lot in the past couple years because people are sick of buying the same thing over and over again.

These are the Billboard rankings. Pearl Jam, Johnny Cash and Bon Jovi are not greatest hits comps. Johnny Cash is previously unreleased material. Bon Jovi is acoustic versions of their greatest hits. Pearl Jam is rarities, mostly previously unreleased.

These are the Billboard rankings:

Bruce Springsteen - 85
Eagles - 31
Pearl Jam - not in Top 100
Johnny Cash - not in Top 100
Sheryl Crow - 5
Bon Jovi - not in Top 100
Counting Crows - 71
No Doubt - 8
Neil Diamond
Alan Jackson - 21
R.E.M. - not in Top 100
Red Hot Chili Peppers - 33

Neil Diamond also not in the Top 100.

I dont give any sympathy to the RIAA pigs. Musicians should make all their money entertaining in front of audiences. A set of 12 recorded songs should not be worth multi-millions of dollars (i.e. ONLY 99 PER TUNE ads) what a ripoff. If i paid just 99 for all the songs i have, i'd be down about $12,000. That is 40 hours a week, 52 weeks at $6.00/h wages. A YEAR'S WORTH OF LABOR

The point is, RIAA executives (who are already wealthy beyond belief) want to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. If mp3's never existed, id have to give up 18 dollar menu meals to get an $18 cd which has no nutritional value. The record industry knows though, taking money from tweenagers and teenagers is like taking candy from a baby.

sorry for being off topic... on to statistics... we have no proof for these statitics and the statistics could never be checked. Why? Because we dont have access to their case study. All we have is that stupid artical with unsupported figures. If the public sets up their own study and any deviation occurs they'd say 'yesterday is a different day'.

The similar statistical lie of the same kind was the announcement that ruben was the american idol. (we all know who really won from the cd sales - i.e. real proof).
We won't ever know how many people voted or who they voted for that day. Noone has access to the records nor were there public witnesses. The show was rigged since the day ruben was called 'the velvet teddy bear' as a marketing scheme.

That's how the RIAA operates- in fact, that's how they've always operated.

:-:~ Phantom

Mroop you forgot the Beatles and their LET IT BE re release without all the bells and whistles and John Lennon's greatest hits cd called Lennons legends RIAA = Rehash Rehash. Latley on the radio it seems to be the same thing too Rehash!!! Not that I mind the Rehash it's better than what NEW MUSIC I hear today but I'm beginning to think that the major labels are running out of talented songwriters or at least willing to promote their best to the buying public. One last thing who the Hell gets Married and seeks an anullment two days latter . BRITANY SPEARS I guess she forgot to clear it with her Agent, Label, Lawyer's before waltzing down the aile!! What blew me away was all the LAME excuses to get the Anullment!!! No wonder they made her a Big Star this dumbass girl hasn't got any BRAINS!!!! She was made to order for the Big Labels cause she has no IDEA of contractul concepts!!! When her run is through this so called STAR will be homeless broke and then she will come screaming how the Big Label Ripped her off!!!!! What a Dumbass

mroop,

As I stated in my post, those were just the best selling at the site I had listed. READ the post please. Thank you.

"When her run is through this so called STAR will be homeless broke"

Britney Spears homeless broke? LOL

"As I stated in my post, those were just the best selling at the site I had listed. READ the post please."

I read the post. I was merely pointing out that the site is not representative of overall sales.

"It's easy to say you have a rebound in one quarter if you hold all your releases until then."

As I noted, tons of big releases are always scheduled for the fourth quarter. This is nothing new.

"Mroop you forgot the Beatles and their LET IT BE re release without all the bells and whistles and John Lennon's greatest hits cd called Lennons legends"

I didn't forget anything. I'm just laughing at everyone here complaining about catalog recycling like it is something new. It's only been going on since at least the 1960's. I am also amused by the claim that this year's fourth quarter releases are heavier than any other fourth quarter in the past because this fourth quarter was the same as all the other ones.

"(KaZaa is down 15 percent, Grokster 59 percent, WinMx 25 percent and BearShare 9 percent). "

Because everyone knows those are the ones that the RIAA patrols and everyone has gone elsewhere DUHHHH. I still download, but not on any of those.

"ComScore analyst Graham Mudd said its data were gathered with a program installed on 1.5 million computers, which allowed the firm to directly track the applications used."

I hope my AdAware program got rid of that one, cuz I doubt people would voluntarily installspyware.

Did anyone else catch that?

I believe that there are less people in the P2P world. Many of the colleges like mine (Mcneese State Universty) have installed Packeteeer. Which keeps people from using kazza and imesh ect. sp now 2000 people have been taken off the P2P net. This is not just happening on our campus, but on otheres like A&M which has many more students that live in the doorms. One 19,000 $ piece of equipment can keep an entire network of people off of p2p file sharing programs. Most of the networks will start to do this because 19, 000$ is pocket change compared to a lawsuit, even if the riaa does not win it.

But, i say we have already won. i can get a song for 99c and it never touch the hands of the riaa. We have accomplished what we set out to do. get the music we want for as cheap as we can.

Also is Adaware free??????????