US Bittorrent Traffic Is Declining, A Study Suggests

A new study indicates that, for the first time in USA the Bittorrent traffic has declined. Many pirate sites and legal services use a protocol that has permitted users to download the files bit wise. In the past six months, its share of total web traffic has dropped by 20 % to 7%, whereas the traffic continues to increase in Europe. Youtube and Net Flix account for 50 % of the entire net traffic, indicating that the other video content is surging.

A large fall in the bandwidth used by Bittorrent traffic has been shown by Sandvine, a broadband measurement firm. A decade ago, Sandvine had started to compile Global Phenomena Report that it produces once every six months, that Bittorrent’s traffic was 60% among the total. Its effect on the media industry was analysed by the inventor of Bittorrent Mr Bram Cohen. There could be lower Bittorrent traffic on the network besides its share falling, latest figures have suggested. 50% of the uploaded traffic is still assigned to protocol in Europe thus signifying Bittorrent’s popularity in the continent. Peer to peer file sharing on torrent has decreased mainly due to people’s changing preferences, especially “dark nets” like encrypted digital lockers and Tor, which can be much difficult to track. People are now-a-days turning to services that are legitimate.

“If this trend continues I think it can most likely be explained by the increase in legal alternatives people have in the United States. In Europe and other parts of the world, it's much harder to watch recent films and TV shows on demand so unauthorised Bittorrent users continue to grow there," fumed Ernesto Van Der Dar, TorrentFreak founder.

"We are finally at the start of having enough compelling legitimate services that the reasons for piracy begin to fade." agrees an independent analyst named Mark Mulligan. “That doesn't mean that a hard core of users won't continue to use these sites because they will” concludes Mr.Mulligan. In US and Europe, copyright owners have taken a very tough stance on internet piracy. In UK 28 website were blocked by ISPs on court’s orders, France ended a policy that threatening internet offenders with bans. Whereas in America a SIX Strike system that permits the user to six chances to avoid infringing copyright, was launched. 50 sites, that advertised lyrics without compensating songwriters, were sent take down notice by The US National Music Publishers’ Association.