The threat of lawsuits has failed to deter Europeans from using the Internet to hoard free music, movies and video games, a technology firm that measures Internet traffic says.
The latest Hollywood movies, television shows and albums zipping between Internet users accounts for 70 percent to 80 percent of all Internet traffic handled daily by European Internet service providers (ISPs).
The level of peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic, according to Canadian traffic filtering company Sandvine Inc., has remained steady since the start of the year.
"In the United States, there has been a small decline of about five percent. But in Europe, file-sharing levels remain as robust as ever," said Chris Colman, European, Middle East and Africa managing director of Sandvine.
The findings do not bode well for media companies desperate to derail the popularity of file-sharing networks, which they blame for eating into sales, nor the dozens of industry-backed download services operating in Europe.
Last week, Roxio Inc. launched a commercial version of Napster in the UK to much fanfare, the latest attempt by the music industry to woo file-swappers to industry-sanctioned pay services.
To slow the rampant growth of online piracy, music industry trade body the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) announced in March it would begin suing the most prolific song-swappers in Germany, Italy, Denmark and Canada.
The clampdown is patterned on a controversial campaign by U.S. trade body the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which has sued thousands of the most prolific American music file-sharers since September.
DECLINES IN U.S.
Sandvine said file-sharing activity in the United States has dipped five percent to account for 65 percent of all Internet traffic in recent months, suggesting the American law suits are having a modest impact.
There have been a number of studies conducted to determine whether lawsuits are actually deterring Internet users from downloading and trading music over the Internet -- with mixed results.
The music industry said its own study shows the number of music files in circulation has dipped since the U.S. lawsuits, but there is no data yet for Europe.
For both Europe and North America, 30 percent of all high-speed broadband customers use peer-to-peer networks to swap all manner of files, Colman said.
There is one stark difference between the two regions. Europeans tend to download more bulky movie-sized files, making users of such file-trading protocols as Bittorrent and eDonkey more popular among Europeans.
"The trend seems to be more multi-media files are being downloaded by Europeans. EDonkey has really grown on the back of this," said Colman.
As broadband connections get faster and PCs memory expands, the capability to download and store larger files -- namely films -- has expanded rapidly, creating a big potential headache for movie studios.
Europe's biggest broadband markets -- Germany, the UK and France -- have some of the most active peer-to-peer users, Sandvine said.
The latest Hollywood movies, television shows and albums zipping between Internet users accounts for 70 percent to 80 percent of all Internet traffic handled daily by European Internet service providers (ISPs).
The level of peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic, according to Canadian traffic filtering company Sandvine Inc., has remained steady since the start of the year.
"In the United States, there has been a small decline of about five percent. But in Europe, file-sharing levels remain as robust as ever," said Chris Colman, European, Middle East and Africa managing director of Sandvine.
The findings do not bode well for media companies desperate to derail the popularity of file-sharing networks, which they blame for eating into sales, nor the dozens of industry-backed download services operating in Europe.
Last week, Roxio Inc. launched a commercial version of Napster in the UK to much fanfare, the latest attempt by the music industry to woo file-swappers to industry-sanctioned pay services.
To slow the rampant growth of online piracy, music industry trade body the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) announced in March it would begin suing the most prolific song-swappers in Germany, Italy, Denmark and Canada.
The clampdown is patterned on a controversial campaign by U.S. trade body the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which has sued thousands of the most prolific American music file-sharers since September.
DECLINES IN U.S.
Sandvine said file-sharing activity in the United States has dipped five percent to account for 65 percent of all Internet traffic in recent months, suggesting the American law suits are having a modest impact.
There have been a number of studies conducted to determine whether lawsuits are actually deterring Internet users from downloading and trading music over the Internet -- with mixed results.
The music industry said its own study shows the number of music files in circulation has dipped since the U.S. lawsuits, but there is no data yet for Europe.
For both Europe and North America, 30 percent of all high-speed broadband customers use peer-to-peer networks to swap all manner of files, Colman said.
There is one stark difference between the two regions. Europeans tend to download more bulky movie-sized files, making users of such file-trading protocols as Bittorrent and eDonkey more popular among Europeans.
"The trend seems to be more multi-media files are being downloaded by Europeans. EDonkey has really grown on the back of this," said Colman.
As broadband connections get faster and PCs memory expands, the capability to download and store larger files -- namely films -- has expanded rapidly, creating a big potential headache for movie studios.
Europe's biggest broadband markets -- Germany, the UK and France -- have some of the most active peer-to-peer users, Sandvine said.
