Difference between revisions of "File Sharing"

Revision as of 02:21, 5 October 2011

File sharing is the ability to transmit or “share” files from one computer to another over the Internet. Such files may include computer programs, music, videos, images, documents, or books. One type of file sharing is peer-to-peer file sharing. In P2P file sharing users can use software to search for shared files on the computers of other users and download their chosen files directly from other users on the network. P2P allows users to download music and movies. Another type of file sharing is an alternative to peer-to-peer software and is called file hosting services. These services are sites that host links to downloads of files. An example of a current file hosting service is MediaFire. This site is most commonly known for the users ability to search for song titles and download them from the links the site provides. However, it's important to realize that file hosting services do not actively monitor the content being transferred by users. So, although the site itself is legal, the files (or music) being uploaded on the site may not be.

History

The history of file sharing can date back to 1971 when the 8 inch floppy diskette invented by IBM[1]. It rapidly won its acceptance as a useful data storage medium. Floppy disks allowed users to transfer files from one drive to another drive. In 1990, the World Wide Web was officially proposed. The WWW provided users with easy access to file sharing. Within the next year, the MP3 standard is introduced[3]. This was the turning point which ultimately lead to Digital Piracy. The first MP3 player was released in 1997 and it was called the MPMan F10. A year later the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed and was used as a weapon of piracy destruction and was greatly used in many legal actions against file sharing services[2]. In 1999 Shawn Fanning created Napster. Napster is an online music sharing software. A user could selectively download specific songs from users that had purchased CD’s and made them available to other users on Napster. Users were sharing each others music. This institutes deliberate copyright infringement and this brings about the legality of file sharing which is discussed below. Just two years after Napster was created, the music industry organized a copyright infringement suit against them. Napster was immediately shut down in 2001. That same year, BitTorrent and LimeWire were released. BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer communications protocol for file sharing. The most famous BitTorrent site is The Pirate Bay (TPB) which was released in 2003. TPB allows users to share electronic files. As of 2011, it has over 5 million registered users and hosts more than 3.5 million torrent files[5]. LimeWire is a free peer-to-peer file sharing software program. In March of 2011, thirteen recording companies are attempting to sue LimeWire for $75 trillion.

Legality

References

[1]http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?category=stor

[2]http://www.pctips3000.com/file-sharing-history/

[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing_timeline

[4]http://www.geekosystem.com/limewire-sued-75-trillion/

[5]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_pirate_bay