File sharing

File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images, and video), documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented through a variety of ways. Common methods of storage, transmission, and distribution used in file sharing include manual sharing using removable media, centralized servers on computer networks, World Wide Web-based hyperlinked documents, and the use of distributed peer-to-peer networking.

Types of file sharing

Peer-to-peer file sharing

Users can use software that connects in to a peer-to-peer network to search for shared files on the computers of other users (i.e. peers) connected to the network. Files of interest can then be downloaded directly from other users on the network. Typically, large files are broken down into smaller chunks, which may be obtained from multiple peers and then reassembled by the downloader. This is done while the peer is simultaneously uploading the chunks it already has to other peers.

File hosting services

File hosting services are a simple alternative to peer-to-peer software. These are sometimes used together with Internet collaboration tools such as email, forums, blogs, or any other medium in which links to direct downloads from file hosting services can be embedded. These sites typically host files so that others can download them.

History

Files were first exchanged on removable media.^{[citation needed]} Computers were able to access remote files using filesystem mounting, bulletin board systems (1978), Usenet (1979), and FTP servers (1985). Internet Relay Chat (1988) and Hotline (1997) enabled users to communicate remotely through chat and to exchange files. The mp3 encoding, which was standardized in 1991 and which substantially reduced the size of audio files, grew to widespread use in the late 1990s. In 1998, MP3.com and Audiogalaxy were established, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was unanimously passed, and the first mp3 player devices were launched. MP3.com offered music by unsigned artists, and grew to serve 4 million audio downloads daily.^{[citation needed]}

In June 1999, Napster was released as a centralized unstructured peer-to-peer system,^[1] requiring a central server for indexing and peer discovery. It is generally credited as being the first peer-to-peer file sharing system. In the case of Napster,^[2] an online service provider could not use the "transitory network transmission" safe harbor in the DMCA if they had control of the network with a server. Many P2P products will, by their very nature, flunk this requirement, just as Napster did.^[3] Napster provided a service where they indexed and stored file information that users of Napster made available on their computers for others to download, and the files were transferred directly between the host and client users after authorization by Napster.

Gnutella, eDonkey2000, and Freenet were released in 2000, as MP3.com and Napster were facing litigation. Gnutella, released in March, was the first decentralized file sharing network. In the gnutella network, all connecting software was considered equal, and therefore the network had no central point of failure. In July, Freenet was released and became the first anonymity network. In September the eDonkey2000 client and server software was released.

In 2001, Kazaa and Poisoned for the Mac was released. Its FastTrack network was distributed, though unlike gnutella, it assigned more traffic to 'supernodes' to increase routing efficiency. The network was proprietary and encrypted, and the Kazaa team made substantial efforts to keep other clients such as Morpheus off of the FastTrack network.

In July 2001, Napster was sued by several recording companies and lost in A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.. Shortly after loss in court Napster has been shut down to comply with court order. This drove users to other P2P applications and file sharing continued its exponential growth.^[4] The Audiogalaxy Satellite client grew in popularity, and the LimeWire client and BitTorrent protocol were released. Until its decline in 2004, Kazaa was the most popular file sharing program despite bundled malware and legal battles in the Netherlands, Australia, and the United States. In 2002, a Tokyo district court ruling shut down File Rogue and an RIAA lawsuit effectively shut down Audiogalaxy.

Demonstrators protesting The Pirate Bay raid, 2006.

From 2002 through 2003, a number of BitTorrent services were established, including Suprnova.org, isoHunt, TorrentSpy, and The Pirate Bay. In 2002, the RIAA was filing lawsuits against Kazaa users. As a result of such lawsuits, many universities added file sharing regulations in their school administrative codes (though some students managed to circumvent them during after school hours). With the shut down of eDonkey in 2005, eMule became the dominant client of the eDonkey network. In 2006, police raids took down the Razorback2 eDonkey server and temporarily took down The Pirate Bay. Pro-piracy demonstrations took place in Sweden in response to the Pirate Bay raid.

In 2009, the Pirate Bay trial ended in a guilty verdict for the primary founders of the tracker. The decision was appealed, leading to a second guilty verdict in November 2010. In October 2010, Limewire was forced to shut down following a court order in Arista Records LLC v. Lime Group LLC but the gnutella network remains active through open source clients like Frostwire and gtk-gnutella. Furthermore, multi-protocol file sharing software such as MLDonkey and Shareaza adapted in order to support all the major file sharing protocols, so users no longer had to install and configure multiple file sharing programs.

On 19 January 2012, the United States Department of Justice shut down the popular domain of Megaupload (established 2005). The file sharing site, has claimed to have over 50,000,000 people a day.^[5] Kim Dotcom (formerly Kim Schmitz) was arrested in New Zealand and is awaiting extradition.^[6] The case involving the downfall of the world's largest and most popular file sharing site was not well received, with hacker group Anonymous bringing down several sites associated with the take-down.^[5] In the days following this, other file sharing sites began to cease services, Filesonic blocked public downloads on the 22 January, with Fileserve following suit on the 23 January.

Legality of file sharing

The legal debate surrounding file sharing has caused many lawsuits. In the United States, some of these lawsuits have even reached the Supreme Court in MGM v. Grokster. In that particular lawsuit, the Supreme Court has ruled that the creators of P2P networks can be held responsible if the intent of their program is clearly to infringe on copyright laws.

On the other hand, file sharing is not necessarily illegal, even if the works being shared are covered by copyright. For example, some artists may choose to support freeware, shareware, open source, or anti-copyright, and advocate the use of file sharing as a free promotional tool. Nearly all freeware, and open source software may be shared, under the rules specified in the license for that specific piece of software. Content in the public domain can also be freely shared.

Ethics of file sharing

In 2004 there were an estimated 70 million people participating in online file sharing.^[7] According to a CBS News poll, in 2009 fifty-eight percent of Americans who follow the file sharing issue, considered it acceptable in at least some circumstances; with 18 to 29 year olds this percentage reached as much as 70%.^[8]

Effects of file sharing

According to David Glenn, writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, "A majority of economic studies have concluded that file sharing hurts sales".^[9] A literature review by Professor Peter Tschmuck found 22 independent studies on the effects of music file sharing. "Of these 22 studies, 14 – roughly two-thirds – conclude that unauthorized downloads have a 'negative or even highly negative impact' on recorded music sales," says Terry Hart, a legal adviser who specialises in intellectual property. "Three of the studies found no significant impact while the remaining five found a positive impact."^[10][11][12]

A study by economists Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf in 2004 concluded that music file sharing's effect on sales was "statistically indistinguishable from zero".^[13] This research was challenged by Professor Stan Liebowitz, who accused Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf of withholding data and making multiple assumptions about the music industry "that are just not correct."^[14][15] In June 2010, Billboard reported that Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf had "changed their minds", now finding "no more than 20% of the recent decline in sales is due to sharing".^[16] However, citing Nielsen SoundScan as their source, the co-authors maintained that illegal downloading had not deterred people from being original. "In many creative industries, monetary incentives play a reduced role in motivating authors to remain creative. Data on the supply of new works are consistent with the argument that file sharing did not discourage authors and publishers. Since the advent of file sharing, the production of music, books, and movies has increased sharply." Glenn Peoples of Billboard disputed the underlying data, saying "SoundScan's number for new releases in any given year represents new commercial titles, not necessarily new creative works."^[17] The RIAA likewise responded that "new releases" and "new creative works" are two separate things. "[T]his figure includes re-releases, new compilations of existing songs, and new digital-only versions of catalog albums. SoundScan has also steadily increased the number of retailers (especially non-traditional retailers) in their sample over the years, better capturing the number of new releases brought to market. What Oberholzer and Strumpf found was better ability to track new album releases, not greater incentive to create them."^[18]

A 2006 study prepared by Birgitte Andersen and Marion Frenz, published by Industry Canada, also concluded that file sharing has no measureable effect on the sales of CDs.^[19] The results of this survey were similarly criticized by academics and a subsequent revaluation of the same data by Dr. George R. Barker of the Australian National University reached the opposite conclusion.^[20] "In total, 75% of P2P downloaders responded that if P2P were not available they would have purchased either through paid sites only (9%), CDs only (17%) or through CDs and pay sites (49%). Only 25% of people say they would not have bought the music if it were not available on P2P for free. This clearly suggests P2P network availability is reducing music demand of 75% of music downloaders which is quite contrary to Andersen and Frenz's much published claim."^[21]

A 2007 study by the Institute for Policy Innovation, on the other hand, concluded that copyright infringement of movies, music, and software, including unauthorized downloading, costs the United States economy 373,375 jobs and $58 billion in annual output.^[22][23]

A paper in journal Management Science found that file sharing decreased the chance of survival for low ranked albums on music charts and increased exposure to albums that were ranked high on the music charts, allowing popular and well known artists to remain on the music charts more often. This had a negative impact for new and less known artists while promoting the work of already popular artists and celebrities.^[24]

See also

Internet portal

• Comparison of file sharing applications
• Disk sharing
• Open Music Model
• Privacy in file sharing networks
• Torrent poisoning
• Trade group efforts against file sharing
• Warez
• Missionary Church of Kopimism

References

Further reading

• Ghosemajumder, Shuman. Advanced Peer-Based Technology Business Models. MIT Sloan School of Management, 2002.
• Steve Kelly. File Sharing in Vista?
• Silverthorne, Sean. Music Downloads: Pirates- or Customers?. Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, 2004.
• Ralf Steinmetz, Klaus Wehrle (Eds). Peer-to-Peer Systems and Applications. ISBN 3-540-29192-X, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 3485, September 2005
• Stephanos Androutsellis-Theotokis and Diomidis Spinellis. A survey of peer-to-peer content distribution technologies. ACM Computing Surveys, 36(4):335–371, December 2004. doi:10.1145/1041680.1041681.
• Stefan Saroiu, P. Krishna Gummadi, and Steven D. Gribble. A Measurement Study of Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Systems. Technical Report # UW-CSE-01-06-02. Department of Computer Science & Engineering. University of Washington. Seattle, WA, USA.
• Selected Papers — A collection of academic papers.

External links

• Digital Britain
• File storage web applications at the Open Directory Project