A study produced by the anti- fraud firm Mark Minor has started to see the start in the nature of piracy. It tracked the traffic levels of 43 file sharing sites, and found more than 53 billion hits per year. The top three sites where – RapidShare.com, MegaVideo.com and MegaUpload.com – got more than 21 billion hits.
These sites are becoming as popular as Peer-2-Peer websites to get pirated materials, but the study has only taken a small sample of sites meaning the problem is much greater than suggested. "The numbers are staggering," said Charlie Abrahams, vice president of MarkMonitor. The study was put together following requests from the US Chamber of Commerce to identify trends and rogue sites.
Mark Mulligan, an analyst at research firm Forrester, is keen to say that the number of visits does not equate to number of downloads. But it does show that the file sharing sites, along with the other, network based methods are becoming as popular as peer-to-peer techniques. "These upload sites index their files. It is very easy and convenient," he added. "Upload sites, alongside instant messaging and blogs, are now on a par with peer-to-peer sites when it comes to piracy, What is more it is "proving difficult for content owners to do much about them”
Users maintain that the sites are also used for legal file-sharing and that the number of visits do not give any indication of the amount of illegal content hosted on the sites.
-Fren
