Most internet users have probably had some contact with The Pirate Bay, even if it’s indirect. It’s the Napster of bittorrent streaming, by which I mean it’s the loudest, most out-front face of p2p filesharing. Their recent trial (which just concluded with guilty verdicts against 4 defendants) caused a major surge in their political party’s numbers. That’s right, I said “political party.”
It’s mostly a symbolic victory for corporate media people. Eliot Van Buskirk explains why file-sharing will save Hollywood and the RIAA.
But as the initial furor over P2P died down, labels began monitoring file sharing networks through BigChampagne and other services. The data they find there continues to help them in any number of ways, from choosing which leaked song to use as the single, to where a band should tour based on the IP addresses of its fans, to figuring out which artists should perform on the same bill.
File-sharing as market research–finally, the media companies are using p2p as a way to connect with their consumers instead of control them.
