File sharing websites attract billions of visitors. That is the conclusion of an investigation of MarkMonitor, a company specialising in brand management.

The researchers say that the file-sharing web sites they studied have more than 53 billion visitors per year. RapidShare.com, Megavideo.com and Megaupload.com, the three market leaders in the industry, together represent more than 21 billion visits.

Given that only forty of the hundreds of sites were included in the survey, the impact of filesharing could be even greater, according to MarkMonitor. Although, probably not every visit to a site amounts to an illegal download activity.

The study shows that file sharing sites have become as popular as the traditional P2P technology to distribute music and movies.

MarkMonitor points out that many consumer groups maintain that the impact of filesharing is exaggerated, but the new report shows that piracy has become a serious problem. Especially since it proves very difficult to combat. For example, as we reported on this site very recently, a court in Düsseldorf ruled that Rapidshare makes sufficient efforts to combat piracy.

Source:  MarkMonitor