BitTorrent census: about 99% of files copyright infringing

People largely use P2P to pirate stuff -- big surprise.

It has never been a secret that the majority of files being shared over BitTorrent are movies and music that are likely being shared illegally. (Sorry, Linux distro nerds.) Princeton senior Sauhard Sahi confirmed this recently after setting out to survey the content available on BitTorrent and, although there are caveats to his findings, they highlight the relationship DRM has with illegal file sharing. As in: the more DRM there is on the legit versions of the content, the more popular it is on P2P. Sahi chose a random sample of 1,021 files from the trackerless Mainline DHT and classified them by file type, language, and apparent copyright status. He found that nearly half (46 percent) of files were nonpornographic movies and TV shows—the largest single category of content. 14 percent of the files were porn, tied with the 14 percent dedicated to games and software. Just 10 percent of the files were classified as music, and one percent were books and guides. Sahi also analyzed whether the content was infringement, checking to see if was in the public domain, freely available via legitimate channels, or user-generated content. Based on this study, 100 percent of the movie/TV show sample was found to be infringing, as well as all of the music torrents. Seven of the 148 files in games/software were found to be noninfringing (two were Linux distros), and one of the 145 porn files was given the benefit of the doubt as noninfringing.

Overall, about one percent of the total files were categorized as "likely noninfringing."