Darknet: Proving the theory

Doug Petch today blogs about my observation in Darknet that file sharing is on the rise and is becoming a mainstream middle-class activity.

He notes that this article in today's New York Times seems to bear this out: File Swappers Get Creative as Wheels of Justice Turn.

Even as the use of traditional peer-to-peer networks continues to rise, many downloaders are turning to safer and more efficient ways to add to their digital music collection. Some are even buying songs.

To be sure, despite the recording industry's effort to stamp out unlawful file sharing, the average monthly number of users on peer-to-peer networks like Grokster and LimeWire has more than doubled, to 8.7 million today from 3.8 million in August 2003, according to BigChampagne, a file-sharing research firm. ...

As Doug writes: "Hopefully this will serve as a further wake-up call to the entertainment industry that their current efforts are misdirected. ... The increasingly popular Darknet continue to be an important counter-balance in maintaining our digital rights."