Reach Metrics on File Downloads?

[musicmmh23]

Does anyone know if there are any official or intelligently assumed multipliers that you can put on a file download, to estimate how many people actually get a hold of a file off of one person downloading it? For example, if my website offers some articles and white papers to download, and a person from XYZ company downloads the white paper, based on a certain reach metric multiplier, can I assume that since he downloaded it, that means at least X more people in his company now have a copy of this file? I am trying to see if I can gauge a "reach" metric for file downloads, as I've heard many times that people will come in, download a file, and simply share it with all of his peers so that they don't have to come in and download it themselves. Are there any legitimate sources that have officially defined this type of metric? Thanks for any help!

[RegDCP]

I would also like to see if there is anything that would give metrics on that.

The only way I can see this happening is to have a registration system that must be used before the document can be viewed.

EDIT: You could probably scrip the document to notify a server upon opening, which might be viewed as spyware.
Perhaps embedding a server hosted graphic and using your webstats to track hits would work.

Reg

[incrediblehelp]

Am I missing something here? Cant you see file downloads (and specifically which ones) in your current analytic software?

[TrafficProducer]

File download Count: Search Google:

file download stats - Google Search

file download count - Google Search=

file download traffic - Google Search=

As for others sites using the downlaoning your software:-

Maybe embed a counter in the software. This logs on to a website and triggers a count/sats, ( Just use on Install, I think software like RealPlayer and others do this).

Being classed as Spyware maybe an issue, but it only counts (gets stats) on install, so should be OK and if RealPlayer can do it I don't think it will cause any issues.