Tiny group of pirates responsible for most of unauthorized file sharing

Tiny group of pirates responsible for most of unauthorized file sharing
Spanish researchers at the Carlos III University of Madrid have posted interesting results today in regards to filesharing.

The researchers say a tiny fraction of users are responsible for over two-thirds of all content published, and over three-fourths of all downloads.



Using the names, ISPs and IP addresses of uploaders and downloaders to 55,000 torrents published to Mininova and the Pirate Bay, the group concluded that just 100 users were behind 67 percent of the uploads and 75 percent of the downloads.

Concludes the team (via TG):

The success of BitTorrent is due to the fact that a few users make a large number of contents available in exchange for receiving economic benefits.


The researchers break down uploaders into just two categories, "fake publishers" and "top publishers." Fake publishers are the anti-piracy groups that upload thousands of fake files to protect copyrights, and malicious users who want to spread malware. "Top publishers" are those who upload massive amounts of content, and make profit in return through ads, VIP subscriptions, and other methods.

Reads the study:

If these users lose interest in this activity or are eliminated from the system, BitTorrent’s traffic will be drastically reduced.

In our opinion, the success of BitTorrent lies in the availability of popular contents which are typically protected by copyright law, and people who take the risk of publishing those contents, do it because they receive an economic benefit in exchange for doing so.


Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 25 Jan 2011 14:54
Tags
piracy P2P torrents
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  • 17 comments
  • lissenup2

    And it's these losers that should be exiled to a small South Pacific island...........kinda like Jack Sparrow was.

    I'm tired of gettin' the shaft for leechers.

    25.1.2011 16:15 #1

  • hikaricor

    Originally posted by lissenup2: And it's these losers that should be exiled to a small South Pacific island...........kinda like Jack Sparrow was.

    I'm tired of gettin' the shaft for leechers.


    I'm kinda thinking you didn't actually read the article.

    25.1.2011 20:30 #2

  • KillerBug

    Yeah...it essentially says that 100 people are doing something like 50% of all torrent file sharing, and they are spending so much time doing it that they never have time to use any of the thousands of things they pirate every day. They are basically unpaid archivists...and their wasted lives should be punishment enough for just about any crime.

    25.1.2011 22:58 #3

  • Mysttic

    Quote:Yeah...it essentially says that 100 people are doing something like 50% of all torrent file sharing, and they are spending so much time doing it that they never have time to use any of the thousands of things they pirate every day. They are basically unpaid archivists...and their wasted lives should be punishment enough for just about any crime. But what court would take these findings at face value? None. At least not until they stop taking the big corporations opinion on how much profit loss they have due to piracy at face value with no evidence.

    26.1.2011 08:54 #4

  • Zealousi

    Originally posted by Mysttic: Quote:Yeah...it essentially says that 100 people are doing something like 50% of all torrent file sharing, and they are spending so much time doing it that they never have time to use any of the thousands of things they pirate every day. They are basically unpaid archivists...and their wasted lives should be punishment enough for just about any crime. But what court would take these findings at face value? None. At least not until they stop taking the big corporations opinion on how much profit loss they have due to piracy at face value with no evidence. They will get bored eventually lol

    26.1.2011 09:50 #5

  • ThePastor

    I actually find this news to be a bit surprising. I really thought that the masses were doing much more than that.

    I wonder if this is propaganda. They could use this to make the governments crack down on those 100.

    Hmmmm Yeah, a bit surprising.

    Unfortunately for them, all Blu-ray protections have been broken and BD rips can be found around the Internet, usually before the retail even hits shelves.

    26.1.2011 13:10 #6

  • Hopium

    that just data collected from posted torrents on public sites. you and i both know people who post on TPB do not generate the content or distro it from day 0. these noobs just have scene access and just retag or repost as their own. P2P is garbage and so is this article.

    26.1.2011 13:20 #7

  • Zealousi

    Originally posted by Hopium: that just data collected from posted torrents on public sites. you and i both know people who post on TPB do not generate the content or distro it from day 0. these noobs just have scene access and just retag or repost as their own. P2P is garbage and so is this article. Agreed. There is a network of people but guess where the content comes from the people that make it in the first place. Think about it and the Pirates are the bad people LOL, i think stupid people hire em :P

    26.1.2011 13:31 #8

  • Interestx

    Yeah yeah yeah, sure.

    ....move along everybody.

    Nevermind the thousands of threatening letters sent out by law fims in th UK alone, it's really only around 100 greedy people going incredibly over the top about it.
    so f*** them they deserve every stunningly excessive cruel and unusual abuse of the law coming, right?

    So when you hear of lives being ruined over sharing a f***ing old film or album take no notice, who cares, eh?
    Several hundred thousand $ for something that can be bought for $3.
    That's consistent and appropriate, huh?

    What a load.

    Can you say 'campaign to shape public perceptions@?

    26.1.2011 15:19 #9

  • ZippyDSM

    Meh make attempted porfit off of distribution a crime not mere distribution itself.

    Until lobbying is a hanging offense I choose anarchy!
    Ah modern gaming its like modern film only the watering down of fiction and characters is replaced with shallow and watered down mechanics, gimmicks and shiny-er "people".
    http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/

    27.1.2011 14:20 #10

  • Tristan_2

    It actually makes you think if the majority of the users on BitTorrent or other Peer-to-Peer sites are the media companies putting their movies,games into the system.

    28.1.2011 09:42 #11

  • Interestx

    Originally posted by Tristan_2: It actually makes you think if the majority of the users on BitTorrent or other Peer-to-Peer sites are the media companies putting their movies,games into the system. I'm absolutely convinced that it is becoming part of the advertising media.

    It's the only way 1/3 or 1/2 film releases make any sense.

    28.1.2011 17:13 #12

  • omendata

    Most films Ive seen in the last 10 years are rubbish its no wonder no one wants to go to the cinema and just download it to see how rubbish it really was if they had wasted £10 to go to the cinema to see it.

    If film companies started offering refunds if not satisfied when you leave the cinema (personally i think thats a great idea although hard to stop those who wish to defraud) maybe then people would stop downloading illegal movies!

    Same could be said of all the rubbish x-factor music out there!

    29.1.2011 22:47 #13

  • b54e (unverified)

    this is bullshit, they got these numbers out of their asses oh and how to know that this is bullshit, mininova has been dead to pirates for over 2 years.

    30.1.2011 13:42 #14

  • pulltech1

    so 100 uploaders upload 67% of files, are selling ads to advertizers, and then downloading 75% of files downloaded. Gee, these numbers dont make sense. I guess lotsa people browse the sites but seldom download, but are viewing ads around uploaded content to see what has been uploaded? Maybe the researchers reported the results wrong. Oh, and I regularly visit Mininova to see their legal files available for download, that my Linux machine wont play.

    30.1.2011 23:09 #15

  • xboxdvl2

    I think what they mean is 100 people are responsible for the original upload of the files.once a file is uploaded to a torrent site aslong as 1 person is seeding its downloadable.if each of the 100 people uploaded 100new torrents each a day once each torrent has been downloaded and being seeded there will be 10000 new torrents a day.in theory they could be right,in reality they probably made up bogus numbers.

    married to my car and computer.both of them have problems.

    31.1.2011 03:19 #16

  • Bob Bobson (unverified)

    I think some people are not understanding the article. What the research has found is that the majority of the items on P2P sites comes from a small handful of people. That is to say, a couple of hundred people who work in various companies where they have access to media and software, copy them, then upload copies to their close network of friends, the "scene group" that they are in, (if it's software, someone in that group cracks the protection, if it's a video, someone compresses, etc.), and then they upload to some other, "distribution" partners who then seed it on various sites. At that point, normal Joes can download it and become seeds themselves.

    What they mean then, is that if the small group of "insiders" can be weeded out and replaced with more reliable employees who can be trusted to not leak things, then P2P site traffic and pirating would drop drastically. Specifically, their findings indicate that because there are so few sources (eg a single person at a DVD pressing factory could be responsible for hundreds of movie or game releases), that is the piracy bottleneck and means that is the place to attack.

    The problem is that the same has been said in the past. There have been plenty of entire scene groups taken down and counted as victories for the anti-piracy groups, yet other groups just stepped forward to take their place. Finding trustworthy people to work in such places is pretty difficult. Not only do many people want to be the ones who supply stuff out of bravado and reputation, but even more of them succumb to simply being paid.

    2.2.2011 23:38 #17

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