P2P (Peer-to-Peer) file sharing software may be the number one problem for music artists, movie producers, book writers and even game creators. They are losing billions in revenue because of these software programs freely downloaded in the internet. While some P2P networks will require payments for premium users, you can still download a file from popular P2P networks without any problem.
So why are these P2P software programs any problem to these artists and creators? Simple: P2P software enables their users to download potentially copyrighted commercial games, music, movies and books freely. When Napster came out more than 10 years ago, it was mostly music that was freely distributed. Now everything and any information can be shared, which include newly released games, the latest blockbuster movies, and even the latest magazines. Since they are free, those affected industries are not earning anything at all. Imagine if one popular musician’s song was downloaded in Limewire (a popular P2P software) 2,000,000 times, it already cost the industry two million dollars if the song is sold in iTunes for $.99 per song. That’s just for one artist and one song only. Multiply the number by the hundreds and the industry loses billions of dollars yearly.
BitTorrent, which is the most popular P2P software on the Internet, works this way: a person uploads a torrent file and seeds them online. The term seeding is like hosting the file so that people can download the file if they like it. In turn those that downloaded the file will “seed” to other persons after they have downloaded it. After two or three days, if the movie is really popular, the seeders will be thousands and the downloaders will also be at the same number. The cycle will only end if the popularity of the file, movie or music will slowly end. Another form of P2P software will just give you the ability to upload and download various files, without any notion of seeders or leechers. Leechers are those that download the file without seeding any information themselves. The performance of P2P sharing is largely due to the fact that every file is splitted into multiple segments and is shared among peers segmented. Splitting means even though you have not finished downloading a whole file, the file is split into various parts, and so you can seed some parts of the file you’ve downloaded. Instead of being a leecher, you now become a seeder that contributes shared resources for other peers on the network.
These P2P software programs may have their advantages. Large files that are needed by many users legitimately, such as Linux distributions or MS Windows updates can be uploaded via a P2P program, seeded and downloaded by users in a scalable way. However, an obvious disadvantage is for the industry that entertains and educates us for a living.
On your end, you have to be careful in using this type of P2P software. If you’re not careful with the programs you downloaded from P2P networks, you’ll end up with having malware or virus installed on your computer. Even some of the files are loaded with spyware or adware to annoy you incessantly. So if you want to use P2P software, make sure you use them for the good and be careful with the free stuff. It looks nice but it might be the end of your computer.
True, there’s a lot of sketchy applications out there! One that I would recommend, though, is GigaTribe, which allows you to share and exchange large files and entire folders with friends, within a private environment.
Comment by John — September 27, 2007 @ 9:32 am