The Supposed Drop in P2P Usage

Like many Internet researchers, I am immensely grateful to the Pew Internet and American Life Project for their sustained research on Internet issues. That said, I really think they dropped the ball with their latest report, "Sharp Decline in Music File Swapping." The full report does not yet appear to be online, but the data memo that is now housed at the "full report" link suggests that the title of the report is inaccurate.

What Pew has demonstrated is that the number of Americans willing to volunteer that they are now using unlicensed P2P applications for music downloads has dropped by half. This is not suprprising given the RIAA's lawsuit campaign. Indeed, the more striking finding is that 14% of Internet users are still willing to acknowledge their use of these applications.

Additionally, the data included suggests a significant drop in the use of Kazaa Media Desktop (KMD) that might be largely attributable to increased awareness of the spyware components of KMD and users opting for alternatives like the spyware-free Kazaa Lite.

Pew's own data suggests a slight uptick in the use of WinMX, and roughly static usage of Bearshare since the RIAA lawsuits were filed.

And what about Limewire? It would be helpful to see the statistics on this reasonably popular Gnutella client.

The popular press has taken up the supposed drop in P2P usage as fact and reported it without clarifying the degree to which this claim hinges on self-reporting by users who have an obvious reason to avoid broadcasting ongoing P2P activites. Pew has done better and should do better.