• by Ross Fadner , January 19, 2004

Despite the Recording Industry Association of America's well-publicized efforts to crack down on peer-to-peer file sharing, the illegal practice spiked 14% in October and November of 2003, according to a recent study by The NPD Group.

The RIAA's public relations and legal campaign to thwart peer-to-peer file sharing began in the spring of 2003 and peaked in September when the organization filed 261 lawsuits against individuals alleging copyright infringement. Internet file swapping has been a de facto practice among teenagers, college students and young adults for the last several years.

"The music industry was heartened to see that its campaign to reduce or eliminate file sharing on P2P networks appeared to be working," said Russ Crupnick, vice president- The NPD Group but, he added, "Recent information from complementary data services at NPD noted an increase [recently] in the number of households and individual consumers using P2P services to download digital music files." Some industry observers say with the rise in popularity of for-pay music download venues such as Apple's iTunes and Napster, the RIAA's battle against illegal file sharing is receiving less attention.

Overall, illegal file sharing is down from an all-time high of 35 million in the spring of 2003, according to the Pew Internet Project. That number fell to approximately 18 million as of mid-December, according to Pew.

NPD's MusicWatch Digital service monitors household usage of P2P services directly from panelists' PCs. MusicLab, a unit of NPD, reports that 20 million individuals said they downloaded music from P2P services in May 2003, 18 million in July, and 11 million in September.

NPD's Crupnick attributes increases in file sharing activity to less media focus on the issue after an initial avalanche of coverage on the music industry's crackdown; fourth quarter spikes in music sales around holiday gift-giving; and individuals comparing offerings and availability between P2P sites and for-pay music download services: "There may have been some legal-to-P2P site crossover, as consumers explored legal digital music but drifted into the P2P realm to compare song file availability," Crupnick added.