Closing Megaupload unlikely to even slow piracy down
Summary: If you really think shutting down Megaupload is going to even slow down online piracy, think again.
Megaupload may be closed, but online piracy will continue as usual.
The U.S. Department of Justice working in conjunction with New Zealand's law enforcement agencies has taken down the popular file-storage and sharing site Megaupload. So, since Megaupload has been shut down, Internet piracy has gone down significantly, right? Right? Well, probably not, NPD market researcher Russ Crupnick said, "Only about 3 percent of the U.S. Internet audience relied on digital storage for legitimate purposes or piracy in the third quarter."
So where is the file piracy going on? The same place it always has been: over BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer software powered networks. According to Crupnick, "Peer-to-peer systems like BitTorrent, which have little central coordination and are harder to stop, still have about three times as much usage among consumers as digital lockers."
BitTorrent file sharing may account for far more than just 9% of Internet traffic. The latest research by Sandvine (PDF link), a broadband solution provider and analysis firm, shows that BitTorrent traffic took up 13.47% of all Internet traffic in the third quarter of 2011.
MPAA Senior Vice President Kevin Suh may claim that Lockers are "more user friendly." And, "I doubt there will be a wholesale shift" to torrents. But, the simple truth seems to be that torrents were, are now, and will continue to be the most popular way to share both legal and illegal files.
So, while Megaupload's closing has made headlines, it really couldn't have made that much difference to illegal file sharing. It has, however, lead to other digital locker sites, like FileSonic and FileServe shutting their virtual doors to file-sharing users.
Could Internet piracy be stopped? It seems it could only be done with the passage of laws like Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). Which, as ZDNet columnist Stephen Chapman observes, "severely cripple (never mind completely obliterate) online piracy [but] would come at the cost of the current freedoms the Internet enjoys."
Despite the best efforts of the MPAA and the RIAA, the Internet spoke with one voice and SOPA and PIPA were shelved. For the time being at least the media companies have been stymied in their attempts to strangle the Internet in an attempt to block piracy. But, there will be further attempts to censor the Internet with an iron hand in the name of preserving copyright.
As always, I think the RIAA, MPAA, and friends would be better served by stopping their hysterical talk about how piracy is killing their businesses and work on changing their 20th business models based on physical objects-DVDs and CDs-to the 21st century when any and all content will always be just a download away no matter how much they may wish it wasn't so.
Pirate image by fuzzcat, CC 2.0.
Related Stories:
2011's Top Ten Pirated TV Shows
The death of online piracy: the end of the Internet as we know it
FileServe shutters in light of file-sharing site crackdown
Megaupload's Kim Dotcom in jail awaiting bail
How Anonymous took down the DoJ, RIAA, MPAA and Universal Music Websites
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Talkback
RE: Closing Megaupload unlikely to even slow piracy down
While there are a great many things I do not see eye to eye with you on, this issue I definitely agree with you on.
RE: Closing Megaupload unlikely to even slow piracy down
Yeah.. I think this is the first time I agree with SJVN too. The war on Piracy is not a winnable war. You can do your best to keep it manageable but it will never be eliminated. Some experts feel a little piracy is good for the economy. I know for a fact that there have been several music albums and movies I have purchased because I was able to see it some other way online. Without that I would have never thought twice about making the purchase.
RE: Closing Megaupload unlikely to even slow piracy down
I'm wondering whether the right question was being asked
It all depends on how you count.
Joey
RE: Closing Megaupload unlikely to even slow piracy down
RE: Closing Megaupload unlikely to even slow piracy down
RE: Media needs to shape up and change their business model,
Yes they do. They have spent so much time, money, and effort to avoid the digital age and instead they should have devoted those resources into making it a manageable, affordable, and profitable business. They had too many years with big old school CEOs and COOs with their old school thinking and ideas that they were untouchable. Then services like Napster woke them up and instead of finding a way to make it work for them they decided to attack it and try to stop it.
RE: Closing Megaupload unlikely to even slow piracy down
RE: Closing Megaupload unlikely to even slow piracy down
RE: Closing Megaupload unlikely to even slow piracy down
The point is, the hackers and pirates give better service. MUCH BETTER SERVICE! What malexf is saying is that he would gladly pay for the content to receive it in what he/she considers a reasonable format and time frame. Big Media is not willing to sell to him at any price in the time frame he would like, but the pirates are willing to share (what they have recorded) for free, and in that same time frame.
Put another way, amateurs are providing a valuable service for free that the studios are too lazy to provide, even for a profit. And then the studios bitch about it.
RE: Closing Megaupload unlikely to even slow piracy down
arstechnica com/tech-policy/news/2008/10/dodgy-digits-behind-the-war-on-piracy.ars
Fileserve is Up and Running