AlbertPacino
Skilled
1.3 Billion people, 100 Million Internet connections and a serious desire for P2P content, Slyck takes a look at the emerging wave of new users from China.
There is a whole world out there, which we English speakers tend to forget about most of the time. Just turning on the country flags in eMule, and then looking at who you are sharing with will give you an idea of quite how many people are not from the US or UK.
The most recent trend I have noticed is the huge, and I mean huge, growth in the number of Chinese flags I see in my eMule queues. This prompted me to investigate further. We all know, of course, that the People's Republic of China is the most populous nation in the world. But did you also know that it now has the most net users in the world too. I didn't. As of the end of last year there were 100 Million online users in China, of whom 42 Million are on some broadband or another - source: China Internet Network Information Center. This comfortably outstrips any other country out there.
There is a huge demand for content in a country that has a relatively low GDP by Western standards, and this has lead to a mushrooming proliferation in the use of various P2P applications. Now, as it seems to be almost impossible to get accurate country by country breakdown of any given individual P2P apps usage it is difficult to prove my suspicions, but various Chinese P2P sites have sprung up fast, and many have huge user bases, indicating an ever growing demand. The great thing for a lot of us is these huge new user bases often share English Language content with Chinese subs. A quick search for groups such as NewMov or sites like VeryCD in eMule will return hundreds of results, most of which are incredibly well spread, and a good percentage of them are either dual-language, English/Chinese, or Chinese subbed.
“Well, that's greatâ€, you might think, “let's go hide on some Chinese Bittorrent trackers where the nasty old MPAA and RIAA can't find us.†Think again, unfortunately. The International Intellectual Property Alliance, publishes a yearly report. This years 2005 Special 301 Report on Global Copyright Protection and Enforcement (catchy title isn’t it?) has the People's Republic of China high up on it's watch list of countries. Just below the "let's nuke the copyright infringing bastards" section (reserved for Pakistan, the Russian Federation and the Ukraine), but still firmly in the "We know what you're doing, yes, we do, be afraid, very afraid" section (along with Brazil, Chile, India and South Korea amongst many others).
However, so far there appears to be little success in curbing this growth in P2P use. Taken directly from the IIPA's report they state:
"In 2004, MPA (Motion Picture Association) has issued 4,055 cease and desist letters to ISPs in China, primarily for P2P piracy. This was an almost ninefold increase over 2003. However, the compliance rate was, as noted earlier, only 17%."
So, it looks like our good friends are having little luck in doing anything to control this situation online. They are however being far more successful in controlling the physical side of Piracy in China. In 2004 almost 40Million DVD’s or VCD’s containing illegal content were recovered. As large as that is, it is probably only the tip of the huge silvers mountain spewing forth from Chinese pressing plants. It wouldn’t take you long to find one of their productions on the corner of a New York or London street, that’s for sure.
With 42 Million broadband users, China is already a force to be reckoned with in the P2P world. However, given that is less than 5% of its population, and that number is expected to rise to 80 Million in the next couple of years, it looks like we should welcome our Far Eastern brethren with open arms, and Babelfish too of course (for those of us, like me, who are only lousy monoglots.)
Source
There is a whole world out there, which we English speakers tend to forget about most of the time. Just turning on the country flags in eMule, and then looking at who you are sharing with will give you an idea of quite how many people are not from the US or UK.
The most recent trend I have noticed is the huge, and I mean huge, growth in the number of Chinese flags I see in my eMule queues. This prompted me to investigate further. We all know, of course, that the People's Republic of China is the most populous nation in the world. But did you also know that it now has the most net users in the world too. I didn't. As of the end of last year there were 100 Million online users in China, of whom 42 Million are on some broadband or another - source: China Internet Network Information Center. This comfortably outstrips any other country out there.
There is a huge demand for content in a country that has a relatively low GDP by Western standards, and this has lead to a mushrooming proliferation in the use of various P2P applications. Now, as it seems to be almost impossible to get accurate country by country breakdown of any given individual P2P apps usage it is difficult to prove my suspicions, but various Chinese P2P sites have sprung up fast, and many have huge user bases, indicating an ever growing demand. The great thing for a lot of us is these huge new user bases often share English Language content with Chinese subs. A quick search for groups such as NewMov or sites like VeryCD in eMule will return hundreds of results, most of which are incredibly well spread, and a good percentage of them are either dual-language, English/Chinese, or Chinese subbed.
“Well, that's greatâ€, you might think, “let's go hide on some Chinese Bittorrent trackers where the nasty old MPAA and RIAA can't find us.†Think again, unfortunately. The International Intellectual Property Alliance, publishes a yearly report. This years 2005 Special 301 Report on Global Copyright Protection and Enforcement (catchy title isn’t it?) has the People's Republic of China high up on it's watch list of countries. Just below the "let's nuke the copyright infringing bastards" section (reserved for Pakistan, the Russian Federation and the Ukraine), but still firmly in the "We know what you're doing, yes, we do, be afraid, very afraid" section (along with Brazil, Chile, India and South Korea amongst many others).
However, so far there appears to be little success in curbing this growth in P2P use. Taken directly from the IIPA's report they state:
"In 2004, MPA (Motion Picture Association) has issued 4,055 cease and desist letters to ISPs in China, primarily for P2P piracy. This was an almost ninefold increase over 2003. However, the compliance rate was, as noted earlier, only 17%."
So, it looks like our good friends are having little luck in doing anything to control this situation online. They are however being far more successful in controlling the physical side of Piracy in China. In 2004 almost 40Million DVD’s or VCD’s containing illegal content were recovered. As large as that is, it is probably only the tip of the huge silvers mountain spewing forth from Chinese pressing plants. It wouldn’t take you long to find one of their productions on the corner of a New York or London street, that’s for sure.
With 42 Million broadband users, China is already a force to be reckoned with in the P2P world. However, given that is less than 5% of its population, and that number is expected to rise to 80 Million in the next couple of years, it looks like we should welcome our Far Eastern brethren with open arms, and Babelfish too of course (for those of us, like me, who are only lousy monoglots.)
Source