At the same time as the RIAA is playing dress-ups in jackboots, other sections of the music industry are catching on to the potential of the wealth of data being generated by users of P2P clients. It’s all a bit hypocritical and understandably hush hush, but for the last two years a media research company called BigChampagne has been cashing in.

From Wired, via kottke.org via boingboing:

On his screen, [BigChampagne’s Joe Fleischer]he can see in astonishing detail when, where, and what Internet users are sharing on peer-to-peer file-swapping services like Kazaa, Morpheus, and Grokster. He searches for cities where downloads of the band’s single are outpacing its exposure on radio. He likes what he sees. In Atlanta, sharing of the group’s new album is up more than 1,200 percent over the previous week; in Houston and New York, 300 percent. So Fleischer checks to see how much airplay the track is getting on alternative rock stations in those markets. Very little, it turns out – less than five spins per week in each city. “Jesus,” he whispers. In Houston, “KTBZ only spun it once, and it still got into the top 15 downloads. This is hot.”

[…snip…] Fleischer is VP of sales and marketing for a company called BigChampagne, which has a better window into consumer demand. By matching partial IP addresses to zip codes, the firm’s software creates a real-time map of music downloading. The company sells subscriptions to its database that let a user track one album for $7,500; bigger labels have annual deals for up to $40,000 per month.

At their website, you can even check out the current Top Ten shared files. If you want to know, last week’s number one was “Pimp” by 50 cent. kinda appropriate really.