The UK has just started to consider a new Digital Economy bill that could eventually usher in sanctions for illegal P2P use. From a rightsholder perspective, this makes it an inconvenient time for studies showing that P2P use is actually dropping, so the music industry commissioned a new study of its own which shows that other techniques for infringing copyright are picking up the slack. Would you believe that newsgroup usage is soaring?

In summer 2009, a survey found that UK broadband users who also happened to be "music fans" were using P2P less than ever—only 17 percent swapped copyrighted files with regularity, down from 22 percent back in 2007. And rather than switching to other piratical modes of acquisition, many of these users were just going to legal streaming services like Spotify, YouTube, and MySpace instead.

While good news from one perspective, such a finding could put a damper on the idea (found in the new Digital Economy bill) that the Secretary of State should be granted fast-track authority to impose all sorts of sanctions on Internet-using copyright infringers. BPI, the UK's major label music trade group, has now countered with a new study of its own, one which is big on percentages but light on real numbers.

The study was performed by Harris Interactive in November 2009, and even BPI's writeup of the results has to admit that "peer-to-peer use remains level" at 23 percent. But, says the trade group, "non-P2P methods to acquire music illegally have grown significantly in last six months, and are expected to keep growing," and it has the shocking stats to prove it.

In the last six months, the survey shows big increases in the use of overseas unlicensed MP3 pay sites (47 percent surge!), newsgroups (42 percent increase!), MP3 search engines (28 percent upswing!) and forum, blog and board links to cyberlockers (18 percent explosion!).

Must! Act! Now!



But percentage increases don't mean much on their own, and it's clear that the non-P2P usage stats are relatively low. BPI stresses that P2P remains by far the largest threat to its business, though just about any data can justify a call to pass the Digital Economy bill.

For instance, though the industry's own evidence shows P2P use holding steady, and outside surveys show it declining, BPI boss Geoff Taylor stresses the still-too-high P2P usage level in his call to action. "It’s disappointing that levels of illegal P2P use remain high despite this and the publicity surrounding imminent measures to address the problem," he said. "It's vital that those measures come into force as quickly as possible."

Shift the discussion to non-P2P methods of infringement and the argument changes dramatically. It's not about high levels, but growth rates. "The growth in other, non-P2P methods of downloading music illegally is a concern, and highlights the importance of including a mechanism in the Digital Economy Bill to deal with threats other than P2P," he said in the same press release.

It's easy to look at all of this another way, too, which is that P2P is a serious issue—but it's not singlehandedly destroying music. Despite numerous claims and studies over the years about P2P sucking up anywhere from 40 to 90 percent of backbone Internet bandwidth, the P2P usage rate just isn't that high.

The BPI-commissioned study puts P2P use in the UK at 23 percent (among Internet users aged 16-54). The global music industry trade group IFPI says that P2P use hovers at around 18 percent in Europe as a whole. And the Leading Questions survey from summer 2009 puts the UK P2P use rate at only 17 percent—and it even included 14 and 15-year olds in its study. The numbers are certainly high, but are they we-demand-you-rewrite-the-laws-immediately high?

Plenty of skeptics say no, and not just the usual digital rights advocates. This summer, EU Commissioner Viviane Reding said that increased piracy was a "vote of no-confidence in existing business models and legal solutions," adding that it should be a "wake-up call for policy-makers." The UK's All Party Parliamentary Communications Group also concluded this year that "much of the problem with illegal sharing of copyrighted material has been caused by the rightsholders, and the music industry in particular, being far too slow in getting their act together and making popular legal alternatives available."

At least the music industry has recognized this problem for some time, and BPI's Geoff Taylor begins his recent statement by stressing just how far the industry has come: "There are now more than thirty-five legal digital music services in the UK, offering music fans a great choice of ways to get music legally."