P2P Piracy Is Alive and Growing, Research Suggests
While the rise of online streaming sites can't be denied, a new research report from anti-piracy outfit Irdeto shows that P2P remains very relevant. In fact, it's still the dominant piracy tool in many countries. Irdeto researched site traffic data provided by an unnamed web analytics partner. The sample covers web traffic to 962 piracy sites in 19 countries where P2P was most used. This makes it possible to see how P2P site visits compare to those of pirate streaming sites.
The data reveal that there are massive differences in the relative use of P2P versus streaming sites between countries. In Russia, for example, only 2% of the visits go to streaming sites, while the rest of the traffic goes to P2P portals. P2P also outperforms streaming in other countries such as Australia, the Netherlands, and India. This pattern is reversed in Germany, where 88% of all visits go to pirate streaming sites. Similarly, streaming is also the dominant web piracy tool in the United States, France, Spain and other countries.
Additional research in eight countries shows that piracy traffic has grown during the course of 2017. This growth also applies to P2P sites, in all but one country, Germany. Looking at the sample as a whole, Iredeto notes that 70% of all pirate traffic goes to P2P sites, which appears to run counter to the popular narrative that streaming is more dominant today.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Thursday August 09 2018, @05:27PM (4 children)
$15 is a lot more money in Moscow than it is in NYC. If $streaming_service is charging $15/month in both cities the Muscovites are much more motivated to hit P2P sites.
For me streaming isn't an option. I tend to listen to albums, not songs. I don't know any streaming sites that A) stream albums; and B) has an album I don't already own.
Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday August 09 2018, @05:31PM
I buy most of mine used. My budgets always have an entry for some CDs.
I rip them, add them to iTunes but only so they'll get synced to my phone. On my Macs I always drop each album's folder on VLC.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 09 2018, @07:56PM
They're not talking about music; nowadays its all about pirating movies and tv. Even if music is not explicitly excluded, the difference in bitrate between audio and video makes music a footnote in any study based on traffic volume.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday August 10 2018, @12:58AM
They are talking pirate P2P vs pirate streaming. No dollars involved here.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Friday August 10 2018, @07:57AM
Google play music streams albums.