According to Central Park Media's John O'Donnell, who hired the online metrics firm Media Defender to survey the online traffic in illegal anime downloads, there are six million anime downloads per week via the peer-to-peer BitTorrent protocol alone. This figure does not include downloads via newsgroups or Usenet.

While various companies (including Media Defender) use techniques like 'Decoying' and 'Spoofing' that involve sending blank files and data noise in response to requests for specific titles in order to frustrate potential downloaders, there currently is, as Viz Media's Senior VP of Strategy and Business Development Daniel Marks told the audience at the ICv2 Conference on Anime and Manga, 'no way to shut down BitTorrent piracy.'