Report: Napster file sharing down 90 percent
The average
number of files being shared on
Napster Inc.'s MP3-swapping service
has fallen 90 percent in the three
months since court-mandated filters
were installed to block the trading of
copyrighted music, according to a
new study released Wednesday by
digital entertainment research firm
Webnoize Inc.
While the average Napster user had
been offering 220 files in February
2001, as of May, Napsterites had only 21 shareable files on their PCs, Webnoize
found. The drastic fall-off in shared files can be blamed on the filters Napster
was forced to install after Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ordered the company to
block copyrighted music, Webnoize said.
Along with the huge drop in available files,
the total number of files downloaded also
declined precipitously, according to
Webnoize's findings. The total number of
files downloaded in May was only 360
million, down from 2.79 billion in February,
an 87 percent decrease. Napster usage, in
terms of actual simultaneous users, also
dropped by 47 percent in May, to 840,000
from February's 1.57 million.
The report appeared the day after Napster
signed a licensing deal with MusicNet, the
digital download company formed by BMG
Entertainment Inc., AOL Time Warner Inc.,
EMI Group PLC and RealNetworks Inc.
(AOL Time Warner is the parent company of
CNN.com.) Napster said it plans to launch a
secure, copyright-friendly,
subscription-based service this summer
which will use music licensed from
MusicNet.
Webnoize's findings may cast some doubt on
the viability of these plans, however, as 78
percent of almost 3,000 users surveyed said
they would use illicit means to obtain
copyrighted MP3s in the future, with only 21
percent saying they would opt for licensed
means. Leading the pack of illicit ways of getting music were other file sharing
programs such as Gnutella, followed by FTP (file transfer protocol) and Web
sites and, lastly, e-mail and IRC (Internet Relay Chat).
