misunderstood by many the global entertainment industry says more than 26 billion copyrighted music files are downloaded every month and about half a million films are downloaded a day legal music download services like apple itunes napster have rushed into the music marketplace to try and lure filesharers away from free content sales of legallydownloaded songs grew tenfold in 2004 with 200 million tracks bought online in the us and europe in 12 months the ifpi reported this week but such download services are very different from p2p networks not least because of the financial aspect there are several moneyspinning models that could turn p2p into a golden egg for commercial entertainment companies paidforpassalong in which firms receive money each time a file is shared along with various drm solutions and advertiserbased options are all being considered we see there are going to be different models for commoditising p2p said marc morgenstern vice president of antipiracy firm overpeer consumers are hungry for it and we will discover new models together agreed mr morgenstern but many net users will continue to ignore the entertainment industry s potential controlling grip on content and p2p technology by continuing to use it for their own creations unsigned bands for example use p2p networks to distribute their music effectively which also draws the attention of record companies looking for new artists to sign increasingly what you are seeing on p2p is consumercreated content said derek broes from microsoft they will probably pay an increasing role in helping p2p spread he said looking into p2p s future file sharing is just the beginning for p2p networks as far as mr broes is concerned once some of these issues are resolved you are going to see aggressive movement to protect content but also in ways that are unimaginable now he said filesharing is the tip of the iceberg