Peer-to-peer downloading

[Frank]

We've all heard ntl many times using the excuse of excessive downloaders hurting the network for the normal customer's use.

IMHO, the highest data-transferring services are going to be in three groups, those being.

1. FTP
2. Newsgroups
3. Peer-to-peer

Now I'm guessing that Peer-to-Peer has long since overtaken FTP and Newsgroups (debatable for sure). Anyway, the point of this thread is to discuss some new P2P statistics that have just been released.

They are especially interesting as you compare the P2P usage stats compared to other countries and them remember how many network problems ntl blamed on excessive P2P/Newsgroup downloading.

Digital Piracy - Definitive P2P piracy figures for Year 2003
Released August 11, 2004


Q1. How many people had been downloading music files in 2003 (any Peer-to-Peer platform)?

A1. 81.5M of people, which corresponds to 4.98% of the Internet users in the World. The best P2P penetration rate was in Spain with 31% of population connected to the Internet. Other top countries were France (30%), Belgium (26%), Venezuela (25%), Canada (23%), Argentina (22%), Netherlands (21%), Israel (19%), United States (19%), Singapore (13%), Germany (17%), Austria (16%), Morocco (14%), Portugal (12%), Sweden (10%), Mexico (8%), United Kingdom (7%), Australia (6%)...

Q2. In what countries did P2P users download the more?

A2. American P2P users downloaded 4,383,918,151 songs in 2003. Other top countries are: Germany (377M), France (327M), Canada (258M), United Kingdom (154M), Netherlands (87M), Japan (59M), Spain (53M), Australia (49M), Belgium (28M)...

Q3. What would best define digital piracy in 2003?

A3. We compared other facts like Software Piracy and Movie Piracy with our own records. This also involved analyzing various economical and statistical data for ~ 90 significant countries. The conclusion was that ONLY a computer with an Internet connection were common to each infringer. Whatever aspect you consider (like unemployment, poverty, literacy, amount of downloads...) will give you a completely different ranking.

Q4. What was the commercial value of digital materials illegally downloaded in 2003?

A4. This is the most sticky part of the analysis. First, remember that most of the infringers would never buy if they had to pay for what they consume. Second, the prices may vary from one country to another. Now if you consider one song to be 0.99 USD, here is an interesting ranking; this is the cumulative commercial value of [ pirated Software (BSA 2003) + pirated music (DIC 2003) ] per Internet connected capita. Russian Federation was #1 with 185 USD per Internet user. For the ~90 countries analyzed, the average Theft / Capita was 42 USD in 2003. Other top countries were Kuwait, Algeria, France, Qatar, Ukraine, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Paraguay, Slovenia, Morocco, Belgium, Norway, Switzerland, Nigeria, Netherlands, Hungary, Oman, Finland, Tunisia, Lebanon, Ireland, United States, Denmark, Greece, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada, China, South Africa... But the most interesting result is the value of such a worldwide digital market (excluding Movie piracy) : $ 34.3 billion in 2003.

Interestingly enough, P2P penetration in the UK is only at 7%, yet the total number of songs downloaded puts the UK in 5th place! Does this mean that most brits do their downloading by P2P, whereas yanks do their music downloading by FTP or newsgroup? Or does it mean that brits are leeching monkies and abusing their ISP's network? :angel:

Obviously you would have to compare the total number of customers in each country with the total number of songs downloaded, but someone else can do that if they so wish and we can see if British ISPs are as hard done by as they make out.

What d'ya think?

[Ignition]

Canada (258M), United Kingdom (154M)

I think Frank that you haven't had the chance yet to bulk out Canada's stats yet, but am sure that given time you'll soon get there. :p:

[th'engineer]

I sense some wry humour here ;) handbags at 50 paces:D

Eng hides under the parapit

[Stop It]

Hmmm, France and germany both Downloaded over double the amount of songs as we did, interesting, and how many did the US dl? 4 BILLION!!!!???!?! Feck me, no wonder they want to crack down :p

Anyway, most UK ISP's arent that hard done by, how much profit did BT make last year for example? Even minnows like Pipex (Who recently bought Nildram :o ) Can make decent profits.

*runs to the hills :)

[greencreeper]

I think it suggests that there's a minority of P2P users in this country, but they are disproportionately heavy users. This makes sense to me.

I have never seen the point in downloading music and all this mpeg business. I like CDs - nice cover and something tangible.

[Stop It]

I think it suggests that there's a minority of P2P users in this country, but they are disproportionately heavy users. This makes sense to me.

I have never seen the point in downloading music and all this mpeg business. I like CDs - nice cover and something tangible.
I have to admit I dont buy CD's ever, but, I do legally download music nowadays, there are sites that allow you to dl a song, thats only playable on your pc, for a year, for 10p each, for me thats ideal, because I basically only listen to music on my computer.

I wonder what ISP has the highest percentage of heavy users.... And if they still manage to make profit, :)

[Pea-Pod]

We brits will download the odd song if we think we like it, and then if we do we go out and buy the album legitimately. In the USA and other countries people will dowload whole albums and burn them onto CDR's and go into business selling them lol.

:angel:

[peacedude2k4]

Thing is with mp3 downloading on ftp irc or any other means such as torrent protocol etc..


Is if your caught i hear fines are nasty and the punishment severe, is it really worth it just for a mp3?? I mean i rather listen to a sample online through some reputable sites and then buy the cd to get a nice cover and a proper copy not some poor quality copy which i probally paid about as much for in time finding the tracks and then priniting out the poor quality covers :rolleyes:

But each to there own

[Stop It]

Thing is with mp3 downloading on ftp irc or any other means such as torrent protocol etc..


Is if your caught i hear fines are nasty and the punishment severe, is it really worth it just for a mp3?? I mean i rather listen to a sample online through some reputable sites and then buy the cd to get a nice cover and a proper copy not some poor quality copy which i probally paid about as much for in time finding the tracks and then priniting out the poor quality covers :rolleyes:

But each to there own
There hasnt been anyone in the UK fined or in any way punished for mp3 downloading, yet, The record industry is pushing the EU to allow personal suits against people sharing mp3's (Like in the US), but that may be years away, and as for the cost issue, hmm, Singles are £3/£4 each to buy, its a blatant rip, and thank god for legal download sites that do temp downloads (As I said before) for 10p each, I dont want the fancy cover, just the song, so if its either 3£/£4 or 10p, theses little contest.

[Nutty]

I think newsgroups would be better for an ISP, as it keeps traffic internal, and therefore doesn't cost as much for them.

There are of course legal music services, I'm subscribed to napster, and I can max my bandwidth for hours on end downloading tracks legally.

I'm not going to cut back, I pay for the service I'm gonna use it.

copy not some poor quality copy which i probally paid about as much for in time finding the tracks and then priniting out the poor quality covers


You're obviously looking in the wrong place if you're getting crappy quality music tracks. ;)

I have never seen the point in downloading music and all this mpeg business. I like CDs - nice cover and something tangible.


Takes too much space up IMO.. I dont want shelves and shelves filled up with plastic discs in boxes. I dont want to have to search through hundreds of physical things, when I can just store thousands of albums on a hard-disk.

[jtwn]

I for one, would never, ever pay to download mp3s, i would consider myself as on-the-way to becoming an audiophile :p:. Ive got a nice hifi setup and a very nice headphone setup...my friends cant understand the logic of spending 'so much' on headphones and an amp etc.. but if any you try it out, you will notice the difference...its worlds apart from your average argos catalogue stuff. Trailed off again...my point is audio cds offer so much more in terms of quality, and can be truly noticed with the right equipment, though buying them, its not a regular thing as the prices leave alot to be desired :rolleyes:

Its not like i agree with piracy, though whoever bumps the price up to £10 for one disc has only got themselves to blame.

[peacedude2k4]

Just been to a friends who is on 1.5mb ntl and on napster and woah :erm:


errmmm yeah just woah...

Making me think about deleting above post :D

[Rik]

Napster is certainly very good and NTL subscribers get a free 30 day trial :)

You can download to your HD and play till youre content, if u want to burn them then thats where u have to *BUY* the track :)

Its great I highly recommend it :)

[nate]

Napster is great.

The package infact is for unlimited streaming, the songs don't get stored on your hard drive, at 9.95 a month (or 5.50 something for BBPlus subscribers), thats not too bad, and they have a huge catalogue too.

[Nutty]

You can download as many tracks as you like for no cost, so you dont have to stream constantly. You can only play them while you are scubscribed to napster tho.