IP Outreach Research > IP Crime
Reference
| Title: | The impact of recording industry suits against music file swappers |
| Author: | Lee Rainie, Mary Madden, Dan Hess and Graham Mudd [Pew Internet & American Life Project] |
| Source: | http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_File_Swapping_Memo_0104.pdf |
| Year: | 2004 |
Details
| Subject/Type: | Piracy |
| Focus: | Music |
| Country/Territory: | United States of America |
| Objective: | To assess the impact of lawsuits against online music file sharers on Internet peer-to-peer music sharing. |
| Sample: | 1.358 American Internet users, 18+ years old |
| Methodology: | Phone survey |
Main Findings
The RIAA's lawsuits filed against Internet users engaging in peer-to-peer sharing of copyrighted music seem to have had a big impact on the extent of online file sharing activity.
The number of US music downloaders is found to have dropped from 35 million to 18 million users, and a fifth of those continuing to download or share files said that they were doing so less often in view of the lawsuits. Drops in downloading were particularly pronounced among students, broadband users, young adults, Internet veterans, women, those with college education and parents with children living at home.
File-sharing application usage measured by unique users per month also declined considerably, by between 15% and 59%. Parallelly, paid online music services have enjoyed higher visitor numbers.
[Date Added: Aug 12, 2008 ]