RIAA Anti-Piracy Campaign Having An Impact
November 5, 2003 (1:10 p.m. EST)
TechWeb News
The Recording Industry Association of America's strong-arm tactics of taking music file sharers to court -- and threatening others with letters telling them to cease and desist -- seems to be working, according to data released Wednesday by a research firm.
In August, 1.4 million American households deleted all the digital music files on their computers, said The NPD Group, which credits the RIAA's aggressive anti-piracy campaign for the change in consumers' file sharing habits.
Prior to August, when the RIAA's efforts picked up steam, far fewer homes got rid of their illegal music files, said the research firm. In May, for example, when The NPD Group began tracking file deletions, only 600,000 households wiped illegally-gotten files from their systems.
“The message that file sharing is illegal is getting through to mainstream consumers,” said Russ Crupnick, vice president of The NPD Group in a statement.
NPD's numbers also indicate a continued decline in the number of homes acquiring digital music files through peer-to-peer file sharing networks. From August to September, the number dropped 11 percent, while the number of files downloaded from such networks fell by 9 percent.
Not all's rosy for the RIAA, however, which seems to be losing the hearts and minds of consumers. Two-thirds of those who had recently shared files said that the RIAA lawsuits caused them to have a 'much more' or 'somewhat more' negative opinion of the recording industry, while 40 percent of those who hadn't downloaded files held the same feelings.
