P2P File Sharing

File sharing is making digitally stored information available for other individuals to download. The digitally stored information includes computer programs, documents, electronic books, images, music, videos and so on. P2P file sharing is users use P2P software to download files, such as music, videos, documents, electronic books and so on, not like the past when people had to connect to servers to read and download files. P2P means peer-to-peer. We meet every day or talk over telephone directly are vivid examples of P2P. Many services in the internet like instant message systems can also be examples of P2P. These include ICQ, MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Pager and so on. They all allow users to directly communicate and exchange files. Through internet, a computer is connected to the other via P2P programs and thus enables file downloading. P2P connects people directly and makes communication in the internet more easier, direct and interactive without any intermediate links. The P2P software used by users to download "free" files include eMule, BitTornado, BitTorrent, Thunder and so on. These "free" files such as movie trailers or game demos are legal; however, those new songs or movies still in theaters are copyrighted material and not legal. When users download "free" files," their computers also becomes part of the network, which enables other individuals on the Internet to download files from their computers. Hence, people shall pay attention to and take responsibility of their actions. As stated by Eric Pfanner in the article of "Should Online Scofflaws Be Denied Web Access," legislative solutions of internet piracy won't be easy and new ways are always can be found to hide those piracy. Although there's a long way for piracy legislation, in reality there are also cases of piracy accusing and the compensation amount is huge, for example, the case of "Minnesota Mom Hit With $1.5 Million Fine for Downloading 24 Songs," in which, the Minnesota mom, Jammie Thomas-Rasset has been involved for a few years for this endless lawsuit. If you dare take risks, you may face the same situation like her. Thus, in general, users have to be careful for downloading and distributing material, particularly those copyrighted material.