“As legal music downloading takes off as never before, music pirates are shunning peer-to-peer services in favor of using iPods to swap music,” Jo Best reports for CNET News. “According to a report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the number of music downloaders using peer-to-peer networks has dropped in recent months. Currently, 21 percent of downloaders use networks such as Kazaa or Grokster for music or video, compared with the 58 percent who downloaded music from file-sharing networks in February 2004.”
Best reports, “By contrast, other methods of swapping music are gaining ground. iPods, along with instant messaging, blogs and other sources, are becoming a popular music transfer tool. Eleven percent of former file sharers admitted to using Apple Computer’s iPod or other MP3 players to swap songs in the past, compared with the 15 percent of downloaders who currently do.”
Full article here.