September 30, 2003
They've missed the point
Wired has a story in which they outline the state of P2P since the RIAA (may-they-suffer-the-torments-of-a-thousand-eons-in-the-underworld) sued everyone last month. The record industry thinks that their "message" is being received. But the article gives the lie to that opinion.
I'll buy Neilson's ratings saying that traffic on Kazaa has fallen 41%. That is, fortunately, entirely beside the point. All that really means is that people have moved to better P2P networks. Why do I say this? First, the traffic on Morpheus, noted in the same article, only fell 5%. Which suggests that people are basically abandoning Kazaa a lot faster than they're abandoning filesharing. Second, the article also notes that an overwhelming 87% of teenagers interviewed still believe that downloading music is a perfectly moral activity. Which means that if they want to do it, they'll find a way. And there are plenty of those.
