File sharing
Encyclopedia
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 network
s, World Wide Web
-based hyperlink
ed documents, and the use of distributed peer-to-peer networking (see peer-to-peer file sharing
).
s 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.
. 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.
In June 1999, Napster
was released as a centralized unstructured peer-to-peer system, 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, 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. 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. 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.
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.
, 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 artist
s 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 shareware, freeware, and open source software may be shared as much as the end user wishes, depending on the license for that specific piece of software. Content in the public domain
can also be freely shared.
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%.
A common argument on the effects of file sharing is that it discourages creativity from authors and artists. A study released by Chicago Journals in 2010 showed that while file sharing does take away profit from publishing and label companies, it does not discourage authors and artists from releasing new works. From 2002-2007, it was found that the publications of new books rose by 66% and the number of new music albums more than doubled. Film production also went up by more than 30% since 2003.
In 2000, Napster, a file sharing site opened and that same year, sales of albums began to decline. There seemed to be no other explanation other than file sharing to support the change in sales. It is still widely debated how much harm file sharing brings to copyright owners although most research papers conclude that file sharing does bring about some degree of harm.
Removable media
In computer storage, removable media refers to storage media which is designed to be removed from the computer without powering the computer off.Some types of removable media are designed to be read by removable readers and drives...
, centralized servers on computer network
Computer network
A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....
s, World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
-based hyperlink
Hyperlink
In computing, a hyperlink is a reference to data that the reader can directly follow, or that is followed automatically. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text with hyperlinks...
ed documents, and the use of distributed peer-to-peer networking (see peer-to-peer file sharing
Peer-to-peer file sharing
P2P or Peer-to-peer file sharing allows users to download files such as music, movies, and games using a P2P software client that searches for other connected computers. The "peers" are computer systems connected to each other through internet. Thus, the only requirements for a computer to join...
).
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 serviceFile hosting service
A file hosting service, online file storage provider, or cyberlocker is an Internet hosting service specifically designed to host user files. Typically they allow HTTP and FTP access. Related services are content-displaying hosting services A file hosting service, online file storage provider, or...
s 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 mediaRemovable media
In computer storage, removable media refers to storage media which is designed to be removed from the computer without powering the computer off.Some types of removable media are designed to be read by removable readers and drives...
. Computers were able to access remote files using filesystem mounting, bulletin board systems (1978), Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
(1979), and FTP servers (1985). Internet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat is a protocol for real-time Internet text messaging or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfer, including file...
(1988) and Hotline
Hotline Communications
Hotline Communications Limited was a software company founded in 1997, based in Toronto, Canada, with employees also in the United States and Australia. Hotline Communications' main activity was the publishing and distribution of a multi-purpose client/server communication software product named...
(1997) enabled users to communicate remotely through chat
Online chat
Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet, that offers an instantaneous transmission of text-based messages from sender to receiver, hence the delay for visual access to the sent message shall not hamper the flow of communications in any of the directions...
and to exchange files. The mp3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
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
MP3.com
MP3.com is a web site operated by CNET Networks providing information about digital music and artists, songs, services, community, and technologies. It is probably better known for its original incarnation, as a legal, free music-sharing service, popular with independent musicians for promoting...
and Audiogalaxy
Audiogalaxy
Audiogalaxy is an audio placeshifting service which enables an individual's smartphone or other device to search & play MP3 and AAC files stored on that person's separate, Internet-connected computer, with the help of special software installed on both devices...
were established, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization . It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to...
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.
In June 1999, Napster
Napster
Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...
was released as a centralized unstructured peer-to-peer system, 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, an online service provider could not use the "transitory network transmission" safe harbor in the DMCA
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization . It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to...
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. 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
Gnutella
Gnutella is a large peer-to-peer network which, at the time of its creation, was the first decentralized peer-to-peer network of its kind, leading to other, later networks adopting the model...
, eDonkey2000
EDonkey2000
eDonkey2000 was a peer-to-peer file sharing application developed by US company MetaMachine, using the Multisource File Transfer Protocol...
, and Freenet
Freenet
Freenet is a decentralized, censorship-resistant distributed data store originally designed by Ian Clarke. According to Clarke, Freenet aims to provide freedom of speech through a peer-to-peer network with strong protection of anonymity; as part of supporting its users' freedom, Freenet is free and...
were released in 2000, as MP3.com and Napster were facing litigation. Gnutella
Gnutella
Gnutella is a large peer-to-peer network which, at the time of its creation, was the first decentralized peer-to-peer network of its kind, leading to other, later networks adopting the model...
, 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
Freenet
Freenet is a decentralized, censorship-resistant distributed data store originally designed by Ian Clarke. According to Clarke, Freenet aims to provide freedom of speech through a peer-to-peer network with strong protection of anonymity; as part of supporting its users' freedom, Freenet is free and...
was released and became the first anonymity network. In September the eDonkey2000
EDonkey2000
eDonkey2000 was a peer-to-peer file sharing application developed by US company MetaMachine, using the Multisource File Transfer Protocol...
client and server software was released.
In 2001, Kazaa
Kazaa
Kazaa Media Desktop started as a peer-to-peer file sharing application using the FastTrack protocol licensed by Joltid Ltd. and operated as Kazaa by Sharman Networks...
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
Morpheus (computer program)
Morpheus was a file sharing and searching peer-to-peer client for Microsoft Windows, developed and distributed by the company StreamCast, that originally used the Opennap protocol, but later supported many different peer-to-peer protocols...
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. The Audiogalaxy Satellite client grew in popularity, and the LimeWire
LimeWire
LimeWire is a free peer-to-peer file sharing client program that runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and other operating systems supported by the Java software platform. LimeWire uses the gnutella network as well as the BitTorrent protocol. A free software version and a purchasable "enhanced"...
client and BitTorrent protocol were released. Until its decline in 2004, Kazaa was the most popular file sharing program despite bundled malware
Malware
Malware, short for malicious software, consists of programming that is designed to disrupt or deny operation, gather information that leads to loss of privacy or exploitation, or gain unauthorized access to system resources, or that otherwise exhibits abusive behavior...
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.
Suprnova.org
Suprnova.org was a Slovenia-based website which distributed torrents for various music and video files, computer programs and games. Started in late 2002 by Andrej Preston and for a while considered the most popular BitTorrent search engine, Suprnova.org closed in late 2004 after legal threats...
, isoHunt
IsoHunt
isoHunt is a BitTorrent index with over 1.7 million torrents in its database and 20 million peers from indexed torrents. With 7.4 million unique visitors , isoHunt is one of the most popular BitTorrent search engines. Thousands of torrents are added to and deleted from it every day. Users of...
, TorrentSpy
TorrentSpy
TorrentSpy was a popular BitTorrent indexing website. It provided .torrent files, which enabled users to exchange data between one another.It also provided a forum to comment on them and integrated the user-driven content site ShoutWire into the front page...
, and The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay is a Swedish website which hosts magnet links and .torrent files, which allow users to share electronic files, including multimedia, computer games and software via BitTorrent...
. 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
The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay is a Swedish website which hosts magnet links and .torrent files, which allow users to share electronic files, including multimedia, computer games and software via BitTorrent...
. Pro-piracy demonstrations took place in Sweden in response to the Pirate Bay raid
The Pirate Bay raid
The Pirate Bay raid took place on 31 May 2006 in Stockholm, when The Pirate Bay, a Swedish website that indexes torrent files, was raided by Swedish police, causing it to go offline for three days. Upon reopening, the site's number of visitors more than doubled; the increased popularity attributed...
.
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
Arista Records LLC v. Lime Group LLC
Arista Records LLC v. Lime Group LLC, 715 F. Supp. 2d 481 , is a United States district court case in which the Southern District of New York held that Lime Group LLC, the defendant, induced copyright infringement with its peer-to-peer file sharing software, LimeWire. The court issued a permanent...
but the gnutella network remains active through open source clients like Frostwire
FrostWire
FrostWire is a free, open source BitTorrent client first released in September 2004, as a fork of LimeWire. It was initially very similar to LimeWire in appearance and functionality, but over time developers added more features, including BitTorrent support. In version 5, Gnutella support was...
and gtk-gnutella
Gtk-gnutella
gtk-gnutella is a peer-to-peer file sharing application which runs on the gnutella network. gtk-gnutella uses the GTK+ toolkit for its graphical user interface. Released under the GNU General Public License, gtk-gnutella is free software.- History :...
. Furthermore, multi-protocol file sharing software such as MLDonkey
MLDonkey
MLDonkey is an open source, multi-protocol, peer-to-peer file sharing application that runs as a back-end server application on many platforms. It can be controlled through a user interface provided by one of many separate front-ends, including a Web interface, telnet interface and over a dozen...
and Shareaza
Shareaza
Shareaza is a peer-to-peer file sharing client running under Microsoft Windows which supports the gnutella, Gnutella2 , eDonkey, BitTorrent, FTP, HTTP and HTTPS network protocols and handles magnet links, ed2k links, and the now deprecated gnutella and Piolet links...
adapted in order to support all the major file sharing protocols, so users no longer had to install and configure multiple file sharing programs.
Legality of file sharing
The legal debate surrounding file sharing has caused many lawsuits. In the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, some of these lawsuits have even reached the Supreme Court in MGM v. Grokster
MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd.
MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. 545 U.S. 913 is a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court unanimously held that defendant P2P file sharing companies Grokster and Streamcast could be sued for inducing copyright infringement for acts taken in the course of marketing file sharing...
. 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
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
. For example, some artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
s may choose to support freeware
Freeware
Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...
, shareware
Shareware
The term shareware is a proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability, or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a compact disc included with a...
, open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
, or anti-copyright
Anti-copyright
Anti-copyright refers to the complete or partial opposition to prevalent copyright laws. Copyright is known as the owner's right for copies to be only made by the owner or with his/her authorization in form of a license....
, and advocate the use of file sharing as a free promotional tool. Nearly all shareware, freeware, and open source software may be shared as much as the end user wishes, depending on the license for that specific piece of software. Content in the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
can also be freely shared.
Ethics of file sharing
In 2004 there were an estimated 70 million people participating in online file sharing. According to a CBS NewsCBS News
CBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. The current chairman is Jeff Fager who is also the executive producer of 60 Minutes, while the current president of CBS News is David Rhodes. CBS News' flagship program is the CBS Evening News, hosted by the network's main...
poll, in 2009 fifty-eight percent of Americans
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
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%.
Effects of file sharing
In an article released by Management Science in September 2007, it was 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 not well known artists while promoting the work of already popular artists and celebrities.A common argument on the effects of file sharing is that it discourages creativity from authors and artists. A study released by Chicago Journals in 2010 showed that while file sharing does take away profit from publishing and label companies, it does not discourage authors and artists from releasing new works. From 2002-2007, it was found that the publications of new books rose by 66% and the number of new music albums more than doubled. Film production also went up by more than 30% since 2003.
In 2000, Napster, a file sharing site opened and that same year, sales of albums began to decline. There seemed to be no other explanation other than file sharing to support the change in sales. It is still widely debated how much harm file sharing brings to copyright owners although most research papers conclude that file sharing does bring about some degree of harm.
See also
- Comparison of file sharing applicationsComparison of file sharing applicationsFile sharing is a method of distributing electronically stored information such as computer programs and digital media. Below is a list of file sharing applications....
- Disk sharing
- Open Music ModelOpen Music ModelThe Open Music Model is an economic and technological framework for the recording industry based on research conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...
- Privacy in file sharing networksPrivacy in file sharing networksPeer-to-peer file sharing systems like Gnutella, KaZaA, and eDonkey/eMule, became extremely popular in recent years, with estimated user population of millions. Measurements show that about 50% of the file exchanges are illegal copies of multimedia files like AVI, MP3 etc.An academic research...
- Torrent poisoningTorrent poisoningTorrent poisoning is the act of intentionally sharing corrupt data or data with misleading file names using the BitTorrent protocol. This practice of uploading fake torrents is sometimes carried out by anti-piracy organisations as an attempt to prevent the peer-to-peer sharing of copyrighted...
- Trade group efforts against file sharingTrade group efforts against file sharingImpact of illegal downloading on the film industryArts and media industry trade groups such as the Recording Industry Association of America and Motion Picture Association of America strongly oppose and attempt to prevent copyright infringement through file sharing...
- WarezWarezWarez refers primarily to copyrighted works distributed without fees or royalties, and may be traded, in general violation of copyright law. The term generally refers to unauthorized releases by organized groups, as opposed to file sharing between friends or large groups of people with similar...
Further reading
- Ghosemajumder, ShumanShuman GhosemajumderShuman Ghosemajumder is a Canadian technologist, entrepreneur, and author. He is the former click fraud czar at Google, the author of works on digital distribution including the Open Music Model, and co-founder of TeachAIDS.-Early life:...
. Advanced Peer-Based Technology Business Models. MIT Sloan School of ManagementMIT Sloan School of ManagementThe MIT Sloan School of Management is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Massachusetts....
, 2002. - Steve Kelly. File Sharing in Vista?
- Silverthorne, Sean. Music Downloads: Pirates- or Customers?. Harvard Business School Working KnowledgeHarvard Business SchoolHarvard Business School is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and is widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. The school offers the world's largest full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, and many executive...
, 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.