By John Paczkowski <http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/columnists/gmsv/7637880.htm>
The suits over at the Recording Industry Association of America are likely a bit more smug than usual today thanks to a report that suggests the number of people swapping music files online has declined dramatically since the lobbying group began suing people who illegally trade copyrighted music online. According to a report released Sunday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and comScore Media Metrix, the number of individuals illegally downloading music from the Internet plummeted from 35 million to 18 million between late May and mid-December. "Nothing has ever fallen off the cliff the way that downloading has," Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet project, told Newsday. "Obviously the lawsuits were a watershed, and they dramatically changed some online behavior." But just how did they change it? Pew researchers would have us believe that fewer people are downloading music illegally. But they sampled only four peer-to-peer applications - Kazaa, WinMX, BearSh! are and Grokster -- each of them known to be heavily monitored by the RIAA. What of BitTorrent? Or eDonkey and eMule? Or Carracho? Isn't it possible that more of the trafficking is just moving off the radar?
And where are users learing about 'off the radar' sites? Perhaps http://bitzi.com/ is one.