Study shows that Internet pirates are not to be underestimated
A recent study estimates that 23.76 percent of global Internet traffic is infringing copyright.
Peer-to-peer network BitTorrent accounts for 11.4 percent of this, according to the report.
Films, television episodes, music, computer games and software make up the copyrighted content that is illegally shared over the web-based network.
The study also estimates that 17.53 percent of all US Internet traffic is infringing copyright.
Video streaming is a fast-growing area of the Internet that accounts for 27 to 30 percent of US Internet traffic, but only 1.52 percent of this is believed to be infringing copyright, according to the study.
The study, released in January, was commissioned by NBC Universal to analyse bandwidth usage across the Internet and assess how much of that usage infringed copyright.
It was compiled by David Price, the head of piracy intelligence at Envisional, an online brand monitor.
Price said: “By combining network traffic studies with our own assessment of levels of infringing or pirated content in different arenas, the research provides the first comprehensive assessment of levels of infringing Internet traffic. We hope to issue a follow-up report at some point.”
