RIAA Claims P2P Has Been Contained

Magorak writes "USA Today is reporting the RIAA now claims that the issues surrounding P2P and piracy have been contained and are no longer as big an issue as they once were. From the article; 'The problem has not been eliminated,' says association CEO Mitch Bainwol. 'But we believe digital downloads have emerged into a growing, thriving business, and file-trading is flat.'"

Re:that is ridiculous- e.g. Gnutella

[Breakfast Pants]

Actually it was a few thousand.

Re:Nice to see wrong statistics propagated

[shark72]

I think a lot of people who've read the article are making a few assumptions:

1. The RIAA has an agenda to promote, and thus, the things that they say should not be trusted.
2. The things that BigChampagne state are factual, and can be trusted.

The RIAA probably believes that it's in their interest to state that file trading is flat, as their agenda is to curb piracy and increase sales.

But keep in mind that BigChampagne is a for-profit company. Tracking P2P usage is what they do. They generate reports on P2P usage, which they sell for thousands of dollars. "File trading is flat" would not be an exciting story for them. "More people are using P2P than ever before" is great for them. It makes it clear that there's a continued need for their services, and that customers should continue to pay them to get reports on the growth of the P2P industry.

The point here is that everybody is liable to spin and distort things to support their own interests (anybody who has children already understands this). Even "good guys" like BigChampagne.