Newsgroups usage up 42%

magick

magick

magick

Soldato
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In the 10 years since Napster launched, you would tend to think the entertainment industry has managed to eke out some kind of victory in its efforts to protect its bottom line. It hasn't. Sure, there have been numerous network shut downs, legal wins, and cramming legislation down the throats of elected officials, but what has it accomplished? Not much, according to the BPI's latest press release.

The efforts of the entertainment industry to stymie P2P usage is no secret. Even though it's quite apparent that P2P usage/file-sharing/web based downloading really has no ill effects on the entertainment industry, and indeed probably helps with publicity, the "threat" (whatever that may be) presented by Internet acquisition of entertainment remains their enemy.

But this type of reactionary behavior is common - it's just human nature. When someone’s way of life, or product, or business model is at stake, those who are threatened will go through any steps necessary to prevent change - even if the alternative is considerably more rational, less costly, and popular. Case in point - the growth of digital music and the efforts of the music industry to save that dinosaur known as an optical disc.

So where does that leave us? Well it's also no secret that P2P usage has declined steadily over the years - but that's just one small avenue in the bigger file-sharing picture. Consider all multitudes of digital acquisition that have developed since the early days of Napster: web based services, digital lockers, MP3 stores, and search engines like YouTube. The bottom line is, you no longer need P2P networks to find music - yet they remain quite popular.

The BPI (British Phonographic Industry) was keen to point this out in their latest press release, which gathered very dire (for the old business model) stats from a November 2009 Harris Interactive survey of UK citizens. What did they find? Basically, P2P usage remains level and continues to be the single most important method of digital acquisition. So what’s the big deal then, right? If P2P usage is level, surely the entertainment industry is doing something positive, right? Not really.

Since P2P networking is only one small piece of the pie, file-sharers have begun to branch out and start eating the rest of the cake. Where are they heading to? Not surprisingly, the Newsgroups are among the most important new avenues. According to those polled, usage of the newsgroups has increased by a whopping 42%. Other methods of obtaining digital media are increasing too. Those surveyed increased their use of MP3 stores (********.com type, not iTunes) by 47%, while “…other significant rises included MP3 search engines (28%) and forum, blog and board links to cyberlockers (18%).”

Of course, this dire picture is being painted by the entertainment industry because they have to – they need to paint an urgent picture in order to sway those in power to enact legislation to combat the perceived problem.

Geoff Taylor, BPI Chief Executive, said “It’s disappointing that levels of illegal P2P use remain high despite this and the publicity surrounding imminent measures to address the problem. It’s vital that those measures come into force as quickly as possible.”

There was plenty of publicity surrounding Naspter’s shut down, the lawsuits surrounding FastTrack, the flood of corrupt files against P2P networks, and the deconstruction of The Pirate Bay. Few took these threats seriously. It’s little surprise that few take threatened legislation seriously either.

http://www.slyck.co/story1890_P2P_Usage_Levels_Newsgroup_Usage_Soars
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No real suprise here. So has all the money and effort to shut down piratebay achieved abosultely nothing then.
 
How are they measuring usage?

Surely it will go up if everyone who used to download movies now downloads hd movies etc.
 
sammo62 said:
How are they measuring usage?

Surely it will go up if everyone who used to download movies now downloads hd movies etc.
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It seems to be based on surveys of individuals.
WotDa said:
It was never going to achieve anything anyway. Shut down one site and another will always take it's place.
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Exactly. Since the days of Napster, the proliferation of music, video, games - everything - has become far far greater.

I personally don't think it's possible to reverse this trend any more. A very large portion of the population have become completely used to downloading whatever entertainment they see fit. The majority of those people could not afford the entertainment otherwise. Is it possible to now take it away from them?

I think it may be a moot point, as with the advances in technology as they are, I think it won't be possibly logistically, as the legislation is always ages behind reality.
 
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In the unlikely event of all illegal downloads being stopped what excuse will music exec's come up with for the declining sales of ever increasingly bland pop music. Time they started at looking at the product instead.
 
Burnsy2023 said:
How have newsgroups not been shutdown already then?
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Oh they'll try. Welcome to the Internet of 2015 a nice safe place run by MegaCorp and filtered and censored by your local MegaCorp approved ISP.

As Leo Laporte and John C Dvorak said on this weeks TWIT (when discusing plans by the Australian Government to get ISP's to filter the Internet) that only in those countries with a free and open Internet will business and entrepreneurship survive.

Shame the MegaCorps and cartels such as the cable companies of America and the RIAA,MPAA et al don't get this...
 
Burnsy2023 said:
How have newsgroups not been shutdown already then? Or at least had the same hassle as torrent engines?
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I think it is due to the servers just mirroring each other. You can't really remove content from the the whole of Usenet, so no takedowns. The system in itself is not illegal. Surprised there isn't more pressure on NZB sites.


Zip said:
I seem to be too retarded to use news groups or under stand them :o
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Because for some reason people like to keep it to themselves. The last thread I posted how to download Ubuntu in got deleted straight after, even though it is legal and not against the forum rules. :( Usenet isn't really any different from Torrents though. Just replace .torrent with .nzb...
 
I think it may have something to do with the fact that the "article" is posted by a third party, the person running the USENET server isn't responsible for the post or it's content so it's just not policed.

USENET articles can be purged but it's not an easy process.

HEADRAT
 
Burnsy2023 said:
How have newsgroups not been shutdown already then? Or at least had the same hassle as torrent engines?
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Most newsgroups are legitemate. They also have SSL connections. Some, such as Nasas, have huge files on there.

So couple all this together. There's no P2P so you are not uploading, you have a secure connection and you can download large files. You can say that it looks very dodgy but it could be genuine traffic.

Besides you shut one thing down and something else will arrise - why they even bother going after the end downloader I'll never know they need to look at the source.



M.
 
I can't be the only one that thinks the original Napster was a great idea? It's not like musicians are ever going to have not enough money to still be richer than the majority of the population.
 
Like burnsy, i am also confused as to why the newsgroups dont get targeted in the same way torrent sites do.

Surely it cant just be the fact that they are in a different location?


This also leads onto another question....while these organisations such as the MPAA are trying to shut P2P sites etc down, why dont they just simply target the ISP's and say that the average domestic user doesnt need a 20Mb or 50Mb connection.

I have a 20Mb connection and i use the newsgroups for downloading, however if i didnt download i would have no need for the fast connection.

*probably opened up a can of worms now :( *
 
zootfloot said:
Like burnsy, i am also confused as to why the newsgroups dont get targeted in the same way torrent sites do.

Surely it cant just be the fact that they are in a different location?

This also leads onto another question....while these organisations such as the MPAA are trying to shut P2P sites etc down, why dont they just simply target the ISP's and say that the average domestic user doesnt need a 20Mb or 50Mb connection.
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I think because that's one industry trying to throttle another industry. Who are the MPAA and RIAA to tell ISPs what speed there customers need?
 
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