The End of Megaupload Is Not the End of Piracy, Says Study

February 13, 2012 by Yonah
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Downloads, Entertainment Industry, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Legal P2P News & Issues, Tops

In light of recent events – dozens of websites were taken down, headed by Megaupload’s shutdown, and Filesonic and BTjunkie drop of support for file-sharing – the entertainment industry hasted to gloat upon their victory.

But File Sharing in the Post Megaupload Era, a study released by DeepField Networks, proves that the celebration may have been a little premature.

To make an idea of the role Megaupload played in the file-sharing community, you should know that the portal accounted for 30% to 40% of all the file-sharing traffic, and right after it was raided on January 18 the traffic dropped between 2% and 3%. According to the study, only a handful of file-sharing services constituted the majority of the total file-sharing traffic.

Megavideo had an astounding 34.1% of total file-sharing traffic on January 18, just before the authorities’ raid, followed by Filesonic with 19.1% of the market share.

(via DigitalTrends)

As DeepField’s data shows, Megaupload’s users focused on similar services, such as Putlocker or Mediafire. The migration had little impact, considering that Megaupload’s servers mostly relied on the American server provider Carpathia Hosting.

Despite the efforts of the entertainment industry (with the help of US government) to curb piracy, it seems that the file-sharing community is not yet to fall. As an example, The Pirate Bay is rapidly switching to magnet links entirely and dropping .torrents, while introducing a new feature – downloading physical objects.

Bottom line is that Megaupload’s disappearance act was not unnoticed, but the BitTorrent community moves on, finding new ways of keeping the sharing spirit alive.