The number of people downloading music files from the Web's most popular peer-to-peer networks has declined, according to the online research firm Nielsen/NetRatings.
Since the last week of June, traffic to the largest network, Kazaa, fell 41 percent to 3.9 million visitors during the week ending Sept. 21. Similar drops in usage were recorded for BearShare and IMesh networks.
"The RIAA is clearly sending a strong message to American Web users and the message appears to be working," said Greg Bloom, senior Internet analyst at Nielsen/NetRatings. "With hundreds of individuals facing real lawsuits, the threat to music file sharers is serious." Usage of popular file-sharing applications is at an all-time low, he added.
Hundreds of alleged online pirates can expect to be sued next month by the Recording Industry Association of America in what would be a second round of copyright law-enforcement efforts by the music-industry trade group. Word of the new lawsuits came as the RIAA announced it reached financial settlements with 52 of 261 accused Internet-music file swappers, the Associated Press reported. The RIAA also said 838 people have agreed to its offer of amnesty from lawsuits in exchange for formally admitting they downloaded files.
Verizon Wireless launched a higher-speed wireless Internet service in Washington and San Diego. The $80/month service requires a special laptop card. Its coverage area is wider than current Wi-Fi service. The Lucent-supplied network will provide customers with data services at speeds of 300 to 500 kilobits per second, comparable to DSL and cable-modem service.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is offering free access to class syllabi, reading materials and even lecture videos for 500 courses on the Internet. "We hope (this) will inspire other institutions to openly share their course materials, creating a worldwide web of knowledge that will benefit mankind," said Charles Vest, the university president. The project is known as OpenCourseWare (http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html) and was launched as a test a year ago, with a budget of $11 million. MIT expects to spend $20 million on the effort over the next 20 years.
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