OpenNap Use Crashes

Clip2 just completed a study of the OpenNap network -- a network of index servers and peers that work similarly to those operated and distributed by Napster, Inc., but the system supports exchange of multiple file types, not just audio. Numerous unaffiliated parties operate OpenNap index servers advertised for public access by Napigator.

Findings

The number of OpenNap servers fell by over 75% in the period from late February to late April 2001. The number of simultaneous users among these servers declined from 100,000 in late March to less than 50,000 by late April, and the number of files available similarly dropped about 50% from its peak in March. Finally, the average file size among files shared by OpenNap users rose by over 20% between early February and late April.

Number of Servers

The number of OpenNap servers advertised and available for public access has declined considerably since late February. The Wall Street Journal and CNET reported on February 23 that the Recording Industry Association of America had sent letters of complaint to ISPs providing service to OpenNap server operators, and the decline may be a result.

Number of Users

Because the user population is not spread evenly among servers, it has suffered less decline by proportion than the server population, although the dropoff remains considerable.

Number of Files

The typical number of files per user, around 225, has remained relatively stable. The file population has roughly varied with the user population as a result.

File Size

• a higher proportion of video files, which are often larger than audio files;
• a shift in the population to larger (higher bitrate or longer) audio files.

  Methodology

  What do these statistics mean? Is the RIAA's letter-writing campaign having a chilling effect?

  Post your opinion

  To gather data for this study, Clip2 retrieved an OpenNap server list from Napigator multiple times per day. Our OpenNap monitor then made independent connections to the listed OpenNap servers and requested the numbers of connected users and available files. OpenNap servers may be linked in such a way that they report numbers that reflect multiple views of a single population. To correct for this duplication, we assumed that servers operated on the same domain were linked, and we averaged their populations instead of summing them. For each metric, we averaged over the multiple values observed each day and thus obtained representative daily values.

  Related Articles: alt.napster Gnutella: Alive, Well, and Changing Fast Gnutella and the Transient Web

  The coming and going of servers on the Napigator list introduces substantial variations into our data, and we therefore restrict our conclusions to trends on the timescale of 1-3 months. Our measurement of the server population is smaller than Napigator's because we exclude servers on the napster.com domain and those which repeatedly fail to accept a connection. Our study does not address the population of OpenNap servers not advertised at Napigator.

  Kelly Truelove is an independent research analyst who, via Truelove Research, covers peer-to-peer technology with a focus on P2P content search, storage, and distribution networks. He is regarded as a leading expert on consumer file-sharing systems, which he covers with a data-driven approach.

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  Comments on this article
  

  

  Showing messages 1 through 4 of 4.

  • I dont think they are
    2002-10-02 09:33:46  anonymous2 [View]
    
    
    i think you may find that most opennap servers specialy the ones that have been around since the start dont bother using the napigator list.. cos they get so many users with out listing....... plus also blocking certain clints like winmx has also played a big part of them unlisting....... opennap comunity is still going very strong.... its just not as blatent as it use to be... as server owner myself i have kept my dns and just simply switched ports and unlisted.... if i open a port that use to be listed ill be flooded with users again specialy winmx.... as as i dont want that client on my server i dont open that port
    your findings are intresting specialy to the user side of the service bus as a server owner i see it as just a drop in people needing to advertise there server/ and hiding from the riaa :)

  • A word on OpenNap
    2001-10-16 09:24:14  perish [View]
    
    
    OpenNap, unlike the various facets of it commercial brethren, is truly an open source file-sharing community. I find a much easier to locate what I am looking for on the handful of OpenNap servers, as opposed to many of the larger, proprietary services. From our point of view, it is quality not quantity.
    
    While many services such as Kazza and Morpheus boast several hundred thousand users, the total files size of these networks, are often less than one would find on only three or four choice OpenNap servers. I attribute this to the fact that most of their user-base is sharing the same five top-40 songs, and not much else.
    
    Don’t get me wrong, if quality OpenNap users started migrating toward an Open Source file-sharing ‘movement’ such giFT’s take on the FastTrack network, I would be there sharing. The fact is that services such as these, albeit proprietary services, are still in their infancy. And while no one can predict the future of file sharing, we can always look to OpenNap, an icon of the industry, to set the standard for how start-up services can be measured, in articles such as this.
    
    Dave Perish,
    Program Manager – WetNap, Open Source Napster Server
    http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/wetnap/
    
    

  • MusicCity could be real cause
    2001-05-18 12:07:12  Steve McCannell | [View]
    
    
    Unfortunately I think this story may be rather misleading, as MusicCity, who owned the mass majority of nap servers, changed over to their own system dubbed Morpheus. I think its fair to say that the reason for the dramatic dropoff in the number of publicly accessible nap servers can be more attributed to that then it can to Hollywoods cracking down.
  • MusicCity could be real cause
    2001-05-18 14:35:55  Kelly Truelove | [View]
    
    
    stevem brings up an important point - MusicCity's abandonment of the OpenNap system - that I did not address in the article.
    
    According to CNET (http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-5714860.html),
    MusicCity ceased use of OpenNap on April 22, near the end of our study period. However, the first illustration in the article shows the reported decline happened over a stretch of time prior to that singular event. This decline was therefore independent of MusicCity's actions.
    
    In fact, although it appears they were unusable at the time, MusicCity's OpenNap servers continued to appear "alive" to our monitor after April 22, so the data do not show a sharp drop associated with their shutdown. If we had included this event, the total decline would have been even greater.
    
    Earlier this month, MusicCity's former OpenNap servers dropped off our monitor, and they are no longer included in the count or list presented at the Clip2 site.