Top row (from left to right): Pirates of The Caribbean, "Prison Break," T-Pain (AP Photo/Matt Sayles), Resident Evil. Bottom row (from left to right): Akon (AP Photo/Jim Cooper), Justin Timberlake, "Heroes," Ludacris (AP Photo/Jakub Mosur).

If you want a true snapshot of what people are watching and whom they're listening to online, look no further than the file-sharing underground.

With Hollywood sweating over piracy and record labels crying over losses, activity on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks has emerged as the most reliable barometer for determining what's hot and what's not among the most tech-savvy media consumers.

To find the most-traded files in the world of P2P, Wired News turned to BigChampagne Online Media Measurement, a Los Angeles-based firm which tracks media-consumption trends across all digital channels -- legal and otherwise.

For this study, we asked BigChampagne to concentrate solely on P2P traffic. The firm then compiled a set of top 10 lists using data from all the major file-trading protocols and networks -- BitTorrent, Gnutella and eDonkey included. Private BitTorrent trackers and invite-only trading communities were excluded from the study, as were private LAN-based sharing networks. But what remains, we feel, is an accurate picture of what the file-trading world at large got excited about over the past 12 months.

Each list shows data from the beginning of the year up to Dec. 10, 2007.

Here are 2007's superstars of P2P:

Top Songs of 2007
1. Shop Boyz, "Party Like A Rock Star"
2. Akon, "I Wanna Luv U"
3. Sean Kingston, "Beautiful Girls"
4. Mims, "This Is Why I'm Hot"
5. Akon, "Don't Matter"
6. T-Pain, "Bartender"
7. Soulja Boy, "Crank Dat Soulja Boy"
8. Justin Timberlake, "My Love"
9. DJ Unk, "Walk It Out"
10. Jim Jones, "We Fly High"

All of 2007's biggest names in cross-over pop and hip-hop are represented on the list of most-traded songs. But there's almost no correlation to sales of full-length CDs.

The Shop Boyz and Mims both had hugely successful breakout singles in 2007, seven of which were widely pirated. But sales of their respective albums disappointed by failing to go gold. Sean Kingston, whose song "Beautiful Girls" ranked No. 3, hasn't even released an album yet. The only top-fiver with a successful long-player is Akon, whose Konvicted CD is certified triple-platinum.

BigChampagne co-founder and CEO Eric Garland sees this as a reflection of the sea of change currently afoot in the music business. In days past, an artist's success was determined largely by album sales. The world of digital downloads, however, is centered solely on singles.

"If Soulja Boy and Shop Boyz would have sold as many CDs as they did singles, they'd be household names," says Garland. "They'd be superstars on par with 50 Cent and Kanye West."

Further evidence is the fact that the biggest ring tones of 2007 dominate our most-traded list. According to recent data from AT&T, Shop Boyz' "Party Like a Rockstar," Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot," Akon's "Don't Matter" and Soulja Boy's "Crank Dat Soulja Boy" were some of the best-selling ring tones among Telco's wireless customers.

Top Movies of 2007
1. Resident Evil: Extinction
2. Pirates of The Caribbean: At World's End
3. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry
4. Ratatouille
5. Superbad
6. Beowulf
7. Transformers
8. American Gangster
9. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
10. Stardust

It's no surprise that a film based on a videogame franchise and starring fetching actress Milla Jovovich did well among the P2P crowd, which is made up largely of younger males. What is surprising is that 2007's top-two box-office draws in the United States -- Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third, respectively -- didn't even crack the top 10. Also, 2007's No. 3 movie in the United States, Transformers, only placed in the No. 7 slot.

BigChampagne's Garland points to the fact that while Hollywood films and content produced in the West dominate the lists