“It’s the thin end of the wedge” he told New Scientist. But Julian Midgley, director of the UK Campaign for Digital Rights, points out that copy controls are also built into the latest version of Windows Media Player. Microsoft says the plug-in will primarily enable businesses to protect their intellectual property. On Thursday, Microsoft released software for Internet Explorer designed to prevent the unauthorised copying of office documents. Copy controlĪnother front in the battle against illegal file swapping has been protecting the files against copying. Apple reports that two million songs were downloaded through the service in its first two weeks.

The number of copies per desktop is restricted, however.

The service lets users download files for 99 cents each and make unlimited copies for portable iPod players. However, iTunes, a service recently launched by Apple has bucked this trend. Some of the effort to beat illegal file sharing has focussed on setting up paid-for sites that offer better service, but these have so far proven unsuccessful. Napster recorded around 1.5 million simultaneous users at the peak of its popularity, but the Fastrack network, to which Kazaa users connect, regularly attracts more than four million simultaneous sharers. “It captures the phenomenon that is the internet, that it has tremendous explosive powers.” For the music and movie industries, it is a “horrifying number”, he says.įurthermore, Kazaa is just one of many file-sharing programs that have filled the gap left when Napster collapsed in 2000 after legal challenges from the recording industry. “There are just 106 million US households, so it shows you the worldwide breadth of file-sharing,” said P J McNealy, an analyst at US research firm GartnerG2, speaking to The Mercury News.

Download figures may not precisely reflect the number of times a program has actually been installed and used, but nonetheless analysts say the figures highlight the popularity of music file sharing.

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