After what appears to have been mounting legal pressure applied by the RIAA, i2hub closed its doors today. This would seem to mark the end of the main P2P file sharing services that tens of millions have been leeching off of for years. This latest closure is hardly news save for the fact that it finally happened. The MGM v. Grokster ruling has essentially caused all of the major P2P services to temporarily shut their doors until they can concoct a legal version of their software. So it would seem that illegal file sharing has departed from the mainstream or is getting very close to doing so.
The final method of illegal file sharing widely known is BitTorrent. Currently, it's rather easy to search for whatever content you are looking for and finding a tracker website with torrent files for that content. I suspect that more and more of these sites will be shut down until even they are scarce and hard to find. The powers that be will ultimately be successful in getting rid of popular illegal file sharing. However, that won't stop the underground networks or darknets that have been popping up in the news as of late.
The RIAA will never be able to get rid of the underground means of illegal content sharing. IRC networks, which have been around since the P2P revolt began, are still live. The RIAA can't get their hands around the throat of IRC; it's too open, too unregulated, too unknown. So they live with the fact that the computer-elite will know how to share content, as long as the general population doesn't. Darknets are another means of exchange. Can small, private networks of friends sharing content illegally do a lot of damage? It's possible, but yet to be seen.
Despite all of the recent successes of the RIAA against file sharing, their numbers are still down. Fewer people are buying fewer products, and they tow the same old line that the pirates are to blame. The pirates are the only reason it took so long to start losing business. The pirates enabled people to listen to music that they would have never bought in a store had they not discovered it via a free, albeit illegal, download. The problem with the music industry is that the content is old, repetitive, derivative, and just not as good. Confess this, and you may be able to turn yourselves around. All the totalitarian legislation and scare tactics will not remedy the basic issue. The stuff you peddle sucks. Plain and simple.