We have observed an interesting change of user behavior in peer-to-peer file sharing networks after the unexpected death of the legendary King of Pop Michael Jackson on June 25.

Our diagram shows the download behavior in popular P2P networks in Germany of Michael Jackson's discography (red line) and albums (all other lines) starting from July 1 until August 24. The data are normalized to a maximum number of file transfers.

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Since the successful days of Napster, file sharing of copyright-protected material — particularly in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks — has been a serious threat to the established business models of the content industry. There have been numerous discussions about the real impact. Scientific papers show the whole range from negative to positive effects, or no effects at all. In my opinion, there are effects, indeed. Some of them are positive as file sharing can expose new music groups and authors to an audience. And some effects are negative as existing copyrights are definitely infringed to a huge extent in the net.

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