Brand and trademark monitoring firm Envisional presented a new study on worldwide internet traffic today. The researchers found that 23.8 percent of global Internet traffic involves piracy, with BitTorrent accounting for almost half (11.4 percent). 

The report gives detailed figures on internet traffic volumes. It appears that over 17 percent of the US Internet traffic is infringing intellectual property rights of the entertainment sector.

The study by Dr. David Price, Head of Piracy Intelligence for Envisional, was commissioned by NBCUniversal. Price found that infringing cyberlocker sites and video streaming sites accounted for 6.5 percent of global traffic.  Other peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and file sharing arenas contributed the rest of the infringing traffic. Analysis of content posted to a number of Usenet newsgroups found that at least 93.4% of posts contained copyrighted material.

Additionally, the analysis of the top 10,000 peer-to-peer platforms shows that 99.24 percent of material was copyrighted material. This figure excludes pornographic material. Interestingly, the study distinguished between various sectors and shows that the adult entertainment sector is the biggest victim of copyright infringement online.

The study was released in conjunction with a panel discussion sponsored by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF). Its conclusions are both heartbreaking and encouraging for the entertainment sector. It shows how much damage is done to creative professionals by illegal downloading online. On the other hand, it can also be of support to them in their lobby for stronger measures against unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material such as movies, TV shows, music and video games. 

A copy of a summary of the key findings along with the report can be found here.

Source: Envisional