Survey claims music file sharing down

Tucson Post Monday 5th January, 2004

A new survey says that the number of people downloading online music files is down by half since last spring, though others claim the results are inaccurate.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project poll results, released Sunday, say that about 18 million people admitted downloading music online, a 50 percent drop since the recording industry began prosecuting alleged copyright violators last fall.

Those results may not show the whole picture, however, as the survey did not distinguish between the relatively new practice of paid online music downloading services and free illegal file sharing, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Monday.

I completely discount it all, said IT executive Wayne Rosso, adding that people will lie if they think they might get in trouble. Rosso is the former president of Grokster, which provides file-sharing software, and current chief executive officer of Optisoft SL, the proprietary network for other file-sharing applications.

Pew Internet Project Director Lee Rainie said survey participants were more likely ignorant than dishonest. He admitted that the survey questions should have distinguished between paid online music services and peer-to-peer file swapping, but that wasn't done in hopes of lessening confusion.

People are confused and don't know what's going on with copyright laws, Rainie said.