Webstats unsure of on the influence of movie streaming services on file-sharing

There is no doubt that movie streaming services, with Netflix at the head, have a huge influence on the composition of web traffic. In the US, during peak hours, Netflix alone counts for up to 40% of web traffic in some places. There are also leads to believe that these services provide file-sharers with a good alternative to downloading movies, thus leading to a decline in the use of file-sharing, which for years provided the easiest means of obtaining movies on the internet.

The rationale for file-sharers changing to legal offerings like Netflix is compelling: why not pay artists their dues and risk legal issues if you can watch movies for a small fee, and watch them instantly? To test this hypothesis, Wired asked two web analysis firms, Sandvine and Arbor Networks, for data on the composition of web traffic. The results are not easy to make sense of.

Sandvine, a supplier of network management solutions, compared evening web traffic of 2010 and 2009. It reported growth for both real-time entertainment services and P2P. The former category grew from 29,5% to 42,7% of total web traffic, while the latter increased from 15,1% to 19,2%.

Arbor Networks, providing network security software to ISPs, like Sandvine gets its data from the traffic on the networks of the ISPs using its software. They found that P2P traffic has been steadily decreasing in North America and is now responsible for 8% of traffic, down from over 30% in 2007. Chief scientist Craig Labovitz told Wired: “I think Netflix, iTunes, and Direct Download all play a role in the diminishing P2P traffic volumes.” Direct Download refers to cyberlocker services that enable files like media to be distributed without P2P software.

So, P2P increased or decreased, depending on the source you take most stock in. Unfortunately, Wired provided little information about differences in data collection. Als both firms have different clients, they do not work with the same dataset. Still, it does not seem very likely that measuring methodologies explain the difference in the results. The only conclusion we can take at this time is that, whatever the consequences they have on illicit alternatives, legitimate movies streaming platforms are very successful in their own right.