Internet Application Usage Continues To Decline

Since the Recording Industry Association of America's initial warning that people who illegally downloaded music would be sued or prosecuted, file-sharing application usage from home continues to decline.

As the RIAA begins filing hundreds of lawsuits against individuals downloading music, usage of popular file-sharing applications are at an all-time low, according to Nielsen//NetRatings data.

"The RIAA is clearly sending a strong message to American Web users and the message appears to be working," said Greg Bloom, senior Internet analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. "With hundreds of individuals facing real lawsuits, the threat to music file sharers is very serious."

Since the week ending June 29, traffic to one of the leading file sharing destinations KaZaA has declined 41% from 6.5 million unique visitors to nearly 3.9 million unique visitors for the week ending September 21. Despite the declines in usage, KaZaA remains the most popular file-sharing application for Americans with millions of users.

Traffic to the Morpheus application decreased from 272,000 unique visitors during the week ending June 29, to the 261,000 visitors during the week ending September 21. BearShare and iMesh attracted 192,000 and 255,000 visitors, respectively, during the week ending June 29 and fell below Nielsen//NetRatings reporting levels during the week ending September 21.

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