Wired magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson's Long Tail theory (article, book, blog) predicts that digital distribution will lead to a jump in demand for niche content.

Not so for music trading hands on peer-to-peer networks, a new study reports, concluding hits are in highest demand just as they are in the retail market.

"Consumers are still driven to seek the same music in legal and illegal markets," reads the report (.PDF), published Thursday by BigChampagne Media Measurement and music rights organization PRS for Music. "The most swapped files were also the most downloaded on legal music sites, indicating that what's popular is popular."

In an email interview, Anderson defended his theory, saying that it describes some industries and technologies better than others. It depends on variety in the marketplace at issue and how easy it is for users to find and discover new items.

"I suspect that says as much about P2P technology as it does about music," Anderson said. "If just a few people are sharing a file, it makes it harder to find and get."

"This research, which looks quite good, suggests that the nature of P2P music is that it follows the lognormal model," he continued, referring to a more traditional distribution where most of the activity is about the hits, rather than being distributed deeply among lesser-known items. "File-trading clients like BitTorrent are optimized for 'hits,' in that you're more likely to find someone (or many people) sharing popular files locally, and thus have a better chance at a successful download."

That's far different from a centralized service with a very large catalog of music such as Rhapsody, according to Anderson. That's what he used for his music research, where he found users were much more interested in niche and less popular music than previous economic models would have predicted — ergo, the Long Tail.

Indeed, anyone who uses P2P realizes that long tail content is harder to find there, and when you do find it, it takes longer to download. Hit songs near the top of the charts, however, often download in mere seconds, which could go a long way towards explaining why the Long Tail theory doesn't apply to P2P the way it does to services where each song is as easy to download as the next.

This isn't the the first time the Long Tail theory has been called into question. In November, report co-author and PRS for Music chief economist Will Page found that the mobile music provider MBlox also followed a "head-heavy" pattern, prompting digital music provider eMusic to release data in support of the theory.

Still, looking at the report's signature graph, there's no denying that their data shows "a skinnier pirates' tail" than one might expect given Long Tail theory:

The long tail could be much longer than it looks here, however, because the graph uses percentages, and tracks only music that can be legally purchased in online music stores. Some estimates peg the number of tracks available on peer-to-peer networks at 30 million or higher, as compared to the 8 million or so in iTunes. The study found that "every track gets a swap," meaning that these extra 22 million or so tracks could contribute to a longer, and therefore more significant tail, than the study indicates.

The Long Tail of P2P (.PDF)

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Chart courtesy of Garland and Page