Merry Christmas From The RIAA The RIAA dropped 751 copyright-infringement lawsuits in the mail today. Merry f****ing Christmas. In other news, two studies have recently come to opposite conclusions about the increasing/decreasing amount of file sharing.
From Ars Tecnica: “Is the RIAA’s crusade against file-swapping a success? Depends on who you ask (and on how you measure success). In another battle in the ongoing War of the Analysts, two new studies come to opposite conclusions. NPD Group suggests that file-swapping has dropped for the first time since 2003, when the RIAA began suing dead grandmothers and live teenagers. Between June and October, NPD reckons that swapping has dropped 11 percent on the major networks in the US—certainly good news for the RIAA.
But it’s not all wine and roses for the recording industry; rival researchers at BigChampagne suggest that in the same period, global P2P usage has continued to rise. Even in the US, where a decline has been seen, it’s not at all clear that the RIAA’s legal threats are scaring consumers straight, either. Previous reports have suggested that music lovers may be embracing legal music downloads, but suggest that the reason is primarily the convenience of online music stores such as iTunes or eMusic. The recent shutdown of services like Grokster may also be having some effect as well now that good file-swapping tools require more effort to find.”