According to a report released two days ago by MultiMedia Intelligence, the value of unlicensed music shared on P2P networks (i.e., Bittorrent, LimeWire, etc.) worldwide in 2007 was a whopping $69 billion. And not just that: the company is predicting a 400-percent jump in the next five years. "A U.S. $69 billion figure is staggering to contemplate, but it effectively illustrates the impact of piracy on the music industry, says MMIs Rick Sizemore, in a press release issued by the company.
The report isnt all bad news: companies should think of that $69 billion not as lost revenue so much as potential revenue. The report, titled "P2P: Contents "Bad Boy; Tomorrows Distribution Channel, points out that the growth rate for licensed content on P2P networks is much higher than that for unlicensed. "We would be remiss to think of P2P exclusively as a tool for pirates, says Sizemore.
While it would nice for content distributers to make up their five-years-behind-the-times lag by embracing P2P technology, even better would be that it might motivate ISPs to stop throttling their customers bittorrent connections, as they have been doing for the past few years. Even CBC isnt immune: their attempt earlier this year to release Canadas Next Great Prime Minister through bittorrent was met with many users complaining they couldnt download the file in any reasonable amount of time.
The report isnt all bad news: companies should think of that $69 billion not as lost revenue so much as potential revenue. The report, titled "P2P: Contents "Bad Boy; Tomorrows Distribution Channel, points out that the growth rate for licensed content on P2P networks is much higher than that for unlicensed. "We would be remiss to think of P2P exclusively as a tool for pirates, says Sizemore.
While it would nice for content distributers to make up their five-years-behind-the-times lag by embracing P2P technology, even better would be that it might motivate ISPs to stop throttling their customers bittorrent connections, as they have been doing for the past few years. Even CBC isnt immune: their attempt earlier this year to release Canadas Next Great Prime Minister through bittorrent was met with many users complaining they couldnt download the file in any reasonable amount of time.