While many of the recent accomplishments of file-sharing technology are primarily aimed at facilitating the distribution of large files, small music downloads continues to reign supreme. This is not meant to diminish the incredible achievements of eDonkey2000 or BitTorrent, as both networks have in fact helped make movie and application downloading possible for the mainstream.

In a study conducted by BigChampagne Online Media Measurement, which gathers statistics on P2P and file-sharing downloading trends, downloading files of music continues to have a commanding lead over all other media formats.

Not only does music downloading have a commanding lead, it completely dominates the P2P landscape. According to BigChampagne, music downloading comprised of 74.3% of all file downloads. The second most popular media download is "other videos" (use your imagination), which rung up 8.9%. Images came in third with 2.3% of total file downloads, while movies made up a marginal 2.0%. Media classified as "other" made up the remaining 12.5%.

Interestingly, BigChampagne also noted another interesting trend - the number of movie files available for download. In the last quarter of 2004, there were approximately 30 million movie files available for download (keep in mind that one movie title may have thousands of associated files, i.e. XviD, DVD-R rip, SVCD, ect.) Although there was a slight dip in available files in the last months of 2004, most likely associated with the MPAA’s clam down on BitTorrent and eDonkey2000 indexing sites, the total number increased once again in 2005.

Today’s number resides at an impressive 50 million movie files.

Although BigChampagne’s figures generally reflect what is being shared online, their proportions appear a bit out of sync from their 2002-2003 statistics.

According to OECD's (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) latest study which referenced BigChampagne's (page 78) data, the composition of music files made up 62.5% of traded files in 2002, and dropped to 48.6% in 2003. Conversely, video files composed of 25.2% of traded files in 2002 (granted unspecific video types), while increasing to 27.0% in 2003. The earlier study also concluded this trend persisted into 2004.

Slyck.com has contacted BigChampagne for clarification on this minor discrepancy.

Update: Slyck.com spoke with Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne. There are quite a few reasons for the apparent shift in the perceived percentage of files. One point to keep in mind is the difference between audio and music files.

The study conducted in 2002 and 2003 measured "audio" files, while the 2005 study in the NY Times measured an all encompassing "music" files. If we look at the OECD study from 2003, we notice a large increase in the "other" category. Many files that were not categorized as audio, yet were still music were lumped into this category.

Quite simply, the 2002 and 2003 study was not nearly as specific as the 2005 research. Regardless, the sharing of all media types continues to be a significant activity online.

This story is filed in these Slyck News categories
File-Sharing/P2P Related :: Statistics/Analysis

You can read more on this from the New York Times and ZDNet.

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