As I was just saying . . .

in my last post, I questioned the validity of Pew's widely reported survey which was presented (inaccurately) as indicating a 50% drop in use of P2P applications for music downloads in the wake of the RIAA lawsuits. Lo and behold, the AP is reporting as follows:

The number of people downloading music illegally surged a month after recording companies began suing hundreds of music fans, a marketing research firm said Thursday.
The number of U.S. households downloading music from peer-to-peer networks rose 6 percent in October and 7 percent in November after a six-month decline, according to a study of computer use in 10,000 U.S. households conducted by The NPD Group.

In a separate, bimonthly survey, 12 million individuals reported getting music on the free networks in November, up from 11 million in September, NPD said.

The article as a whole suggests a stronger footing for this research, and corroboration by other studies. That said, it will probably remain difficult for some time to accurately track P2P usage. P2P thrives, in part, because of the functional anonymity of the participants. Not all of the reasons for this are entirely sinister. There are potential social consequences to revealing a shared folder dominated by the works of, say, Loverboy.

For the near term, it might be best for all parties concerned to acknowledge that it is difficult to know deifnitively whether P2P usage is up or down, and harder still to know whether apparent shifts in P2P usage are attributable to lawsuits, popular new releases, improved P2P software, the harmonic convergence, or, heaven help us all, the ongoing Loverboy tour.