GristyMcFisty and Quakester2000 used our news submit to submit in news about the currently situation about P2P usage in Europe. Despite continuous lawsuits for online music piracy in the US and lawsuit threats in Europe, this seems to have little if any effect on European internet users that illegally download and share music and movies. The filtering firm Sandvine reports that 70-80% of all European traffic is music and movie content alone and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) now plans on taking the RIAA approach by suing the most active music file swappers to start with.
According to Sanvine, a higher proportion of European users swap movie files than the US which will be of concern for the European movie industry also. About 30% of all US & European broadband users have used at least a P2P network service to download music and video content. Jay Berman, chairman and chief exceutive from the IFPI expects P2P activity to rise along with increased broadband usage, however he also expects a steady fall in illegal file sharing once legal action starts taking place, increasing the awareness of its legal issues as well as the launch of many new legal alertnatives such as the upcoming iTunes.
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Albums and films account for 70-80% of all internet traffic in Europe, traffic filtering firm Sandvine has reported. "In the US, there has been a small decline of about 5%. But in Europe, file-sharing levels remain as robust as ever," said Sandvine's Chris Colman. The music industry blames web piracy for a decline in record sales. Trade body the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) recently announced it would begin suing the most prolific song-swappers in Europe. Read the full article here. |
What the IFPI may not realise is that while the initial rollout of lawsuits in the US did knock back piracy by around half, it only seemed to work out for about 6 months before the P2P usage level started to level out and begin to rise. Finally, while many consumers are happy to pay up to around €1 per song in Europe, most are unhappy with the DRM restrictions enforced on them leaving them with little choice than to go to a P2P network to get a track that works with their non-DRM compliant MP3 player.
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