As Napster blocks songs, its popularity dwindles. Are other P2P services playing dead?
The new face of file-swapping service Napster and the scattering of its visitors are proof of how far the record labels and Hollywood have come in defusing the biggest online threat to their businesses.
A year ago, the once-underground practice of online file trading was fast approaching the popularity and easy use of an America Online, with the help of Napster and its rivals. But for now it appears the copyright industry has forestalled the threat of a mainstream, long-lasting consumer rebellion.
The last few weeks have seen a precipitous drop in the number of songs being traded through Napster. Competing services have also agreed to start filtering out copyrighted works, and some have shed visitors by the tens of thousands.
The leading swapping sites are still attracting millions of people a day, but their roles are changing, beginning to look more like the underground's long-running digital swap meets than like the venture-funded Napsters and Scours of the last two years. Developers are working on newer, more anonymous services, but these have yet to demonstrate any wide support.
"It's definitely becoming more underground," said Kelly Truelove, CEO of Clip2.com, a company that tracks and supports "peer-to-peer" file-swapping services. "If it's harder to find what you're looking for, and if there's the threat of harassment, then people look elsewhere."
The big copyright holders, including the major record labels and Hollywood studios, are betting that the decline will continue well beyond Napster's borders. By putting enough pressure on individual file-trading services, and keeping the threat that individual people might be targeted, no future service will reach Napster's popularity, they hope. And that will make the entire phenomenon less dangerous, they say.
"I think peer-to-peer (file trading) will be a continuing part of the scene, but it won't have the dominant role it has today," said Cary Sherman, the Recording Industry Association of America's general counsel. "The important thing is that these services are only as good as the number of people who participate in them."
But even the record labels say that file-swapping services have left permanent marks on the industry and consumers' expectations. Moreover, the peer-to-peer computing model has begun to permeate larger companies such as Sun Microsystems and a handful of well-funded start-ups focused on new applications for the technology.
Resisting the decline
With filtering efforts ongoing in Napster's network, the biggest surprise may be that millions of people are still using the service every day.
Since early March, the company has been blocking access to many copyrighted songs to satisfy a court order. This filtering process evolved slowly, but late in April it reached the point where most major label songs became genuinely difficult, if not impossible, to find.
