Peer-to-Peer Networks Top Internet Traffic List

Further proving that illegal downloading is more common than anybody is willing to admit, a study that monitored internet traffic in North America in May discovered that nearly 44% of all activity was dedicated to file-sharing programs. By comparison, plain old web browsing only occupied 27.3% of traffic, with streaming media coming in third place with 14.8%. Sandvine, a networking equipment and technology provider, conducted the study. Last year, a similar study revealed P2P traffic made up 41% of all activity. While the study couldn't break down how much of that downloading was devoted to music (as opposed to larger files like video or software), the 44% represents a staggering amount of computer owners using P2P programs to get their media via illegal means.

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter