The market research firm said that the rate of users sharing pirated content on P2P networks dropped to 9 percent during 2010, down from 16 percent reported in 2007. This is a dramatic reversal in the trend of increasing Internet piracy over the last few years.
NPD argues that online piracy is not a fundamental problem for the media industries, because the rates are so low. That opinion clashes violently with the declaration in the IFPI's Digital Media 2010 report that the industry will struggle for its very survival unless piracy is dealt with. However, it mirrors a tone from Warner Music which estimated in a presentation to the FCC that only 13 percent of American's piracy music.
The record label said the actions are harmful, but admitted that pirates do spend money on content too and tend to "drive discovery for others."
The decline in P2P use is strongly linked to the shut down of LimeWire in late 2010. "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," said Russ Crupnick, NPD analyst.
"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."
Written by: James Delahunty @ 27 Mar 2011 20:15
