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File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to
digital media Digital media is any communication media that operate in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronics device. ...
, such as computer programs,
multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradit ...
(audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include
removable media Expandable storage is a form of computer storage that is designed to be inserted and removed from a system. Some forms of removable media, such as optical discs, require a reader to be installed in the computer, while others, such as USB flash dr ...
, centralized servers on
computer network A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...
s, Internet-based
hyperlink In computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a digital reference to data that the user can follow or be guided by clicking or tapping. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text w ...
ed documents, and the use of distributed
peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer ...
networking. File sharing technologies, such as BitTorrent, are integral to modern media piracy, as well as the sharing of scientific data and other free content.


History

Files were first exchanged on
removable media Expandable storage is a form of computer storage that is designed to be inserted and removed from a system. Some forms of removable media, such as optical discs, require a reader to be installed in the computer, while others, such as USB flash dr ...
. Computers were able to access remote files using filesystem mounting, bulletin board systems (1978),
Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it wa ...
(1979), and FTP servers (1970's).
Internet Relay Chat Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called '' channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat an ...
(1988) and
Hotline A hotline is a point-to-point communications link in which a call is automatically directed to the preselected destination without any additional action by the user when the end instrument goes off-hook. An example would be a phone that auto ...
(1997) enabled users to communicate remotely through
chat Chat or chats may refer to: Communication * Conversation, particularly casual * Online chat, text message communication over the Internet in real-time * Synchronous conferencing, a formal term for online chat * SMS chat, a form of text messagin ...
and to exchange files. The mp3 encoding, which was standardized in 1991 and 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 A portable media player (PMP) (also including the related digital audio player (DAP)) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored ...
devices were launched. In June 1999,
Napster Napster was a peer-to-peer file sharing application. It originally launched on June 1, 1999, with an emphasis on digital audio file distribution. Audio songs shared on the service were typically encoded in the MP3 format. It was founded by Sha ...
was released as an unstructured centralized 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 December 1999, Napster was sued by several recording companies and lost in '' A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.''. In the case of Napster, it has been ruled that 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. 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 March 2001, Kazaa 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 October 2001, the
MPAA The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, as well as the video streaming service Netflix. Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distrib ...
and the RIAA filed a lawsuit against the developers of Kazaa, Morpheus and Grokster that would lead to the US Supreme Court's ''
MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. ''MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd.'', 545 U.S. 913 (2005), is a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled unanimously that the defendants, peer-to-peer file sharing companies Grokster and Streamcast (maker of Morpheus), coul ...
'' decision in 2005. Shortly after its loss in court, Napster was shut down to comply with a court order. This drove users to other P2P applications and file sharing continued its 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 the
Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/ ...
(RIAA) filed a lawsuit that effectively shut down Audiogalaxy. From 2002 through 2003, a number of BitTorrent services were established, including
Suprnova.org Suprnova.org was a Slovenia-based website that distributed BitTorrent trackers for various music and video files, computer programs and games. Started in late 2002 by Andrej Preston (known as Slonček, Slovenian for "little elephant") and for a wh ...
, isoHunt, TorrentSpy, and
The Pirate Bay The Pirate Bay (sometimes abbreviated as TPB) is an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay allows visitors to search, download, and contribute ...
. In September 2003, the RIAA began filing lawsuits against users of P2P file sharing networks such as Kazaa. 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). Also in 2003, the
MPAA The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, as well as the video streaming service Netflix. Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distrib ...
started to take action against BitTorrent sites, leading to the shutdown of Torrentse and Sharelive in July 2003. With the shutdown 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 (sometimes abbreviated as TPB) is an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay allows visitors to search, download, and contribute ...
. “The File Sharing Act was launched by Chairman Towns in 2009, this act prohibited the use of applications that allowed individuals to share federal information amongst one another. On the other hand, only specific file sharing applications were made available to federal computers” (the United States.Congress.House). 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 FrostWire is a free and 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 supp ...
and gtk-gnutella. Furthermore, multi-protocol file-sharing software such as
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 ...
and Shareaza adapted to support all the major file-sharing protocols, so users no longer had to install and configure multiple file-sharing programs. On January 19, 2012, the
United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United Stat ...
shut down the popular domain of Megaupload (established 2005). The file sharing site has claimed to have over 50,000,000 people a day. Kim Dotcom (formerly Kim Schmitz) was arrested with three associates in New Zealand on January 20, 2012 and is awaiting extradition. The case involving the downfall of the world's largest and most popular file sharing site was not well received, with hacker group
Anonymous Anonymous may refer to: * Anonymity, the state of an individual's identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown ** Anonymous work, a work of art or literature that has an unnamed or unknown creator or author * Anony ...
bringing down several sites associated with the take-down. In the following days, other file sharing sites began to cease services; Filesonic blocked public downloads on January 22, with Fileserve following suit on January 23. In 2021 a European Citizens' Initiative "Freedom to Share" started collecting signatures in order to get the
European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...
to discuss (and eventually make rules) on this subject, which is controversial.


Techniques used for video sharing

From the early 2000s until the mid 2010s, online video streaming was usually based on the
Adobe Flash Player Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome as Shockwave Flash) is computer software for viewing multimedia contents, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming audio and video content created on ...
. After more and more vulnerabilities in Adobe's flash became known,
YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
switched to HTML5 based video playback in January 2015.


Types


Peer-to-peer file sharing

Peer-to-peer file sharing Peer-to-peer file sharing is the distribution and sharing of digital media using peer-to-peer (P2P) networking technology. P2P file sharing allows users to access media files such as books, music, movies, and games using a P2P software program t ...
is based on the
peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer ...
(P2P) application architecture. Shared files on the computers of other
users Ancient Egyptian roles * User (ancient Egyptian official), an ancient Egyptian nomarch (governor) of the Eighth Dynasty * Useramen, an ancient Egyptian vizier also called "User" Other uses * User (computing), a person (or software) using an ...
are indexed on directory servers. P2P technology was used by popular services like
Napster Napster was a peer-to-peer file sharing application. It originally launched on June 1, 1999, with an emphasis on digital audio file distribution. Audio songs shared on the service were typically encoded in the MP3 format. It was founded by Sha ...
and LimeWire. The most popular protocol for P2P sharing is BitTorrent.


File sync and sharing services

Cloud-based file syncing and sharing services implement automated file transfers by updating files from a dedicated sharing directory on each user's networked devices. Files placed in this folder also are typically accessible through a website and mobile app and can be easily shared with other users for viewing or collaboration. Such services have become popular via consumer-oriented
file hosting service A file-hosting service, cloud-storage service, online file-storage provider, or cyberlocker is an internet hosting service specifically designed to host user files. It allows users to upload files that could be accessed over the internet afte ...
s such as Dropbox and Google Drive. With the rising need of sharing big files online easily, new open access sharing platforms have appeared, adding even more services to their core business (cloud storage, multi-device synchronization, online collaboration), such as ShareFile,
Tresorit Tresorit is a cloud storage service with end-to-end encryption. Founded in 2011, Tresorit closed an €11.5M Series B financing round in 2018 and was featured on FT1000 by Financial Times 2020 as the fifth fastest-growing cybersecurity company i ...
, WeTransfer, or
Hightail Hightail, formerly YouSendIt, is a cloud service that lets users send and receive digitally sign and synchronize files. YouSendIt.com and YouSendIt Inc. were founded in 2004; the company renamed itself Hightail in 2013. The company's early foc ...
. rsync is a more traditional program released in 1996 which synchronizes files on a direct machine-to-machine basis. Data synchronization in general can use other approaches to share files, such as distributed file systems, version control, or mirrors.


Academic file sharing

In addition to file sharing for the purposes of entertainment, academic file sharing has become a topic of increasing concern,Rogerson, A. M. (2014, June). ''Detecting the work of essay mills and file swapping sites: some clues they leave behind''. Paper presented at the 6th International Integrity and Plagiarism Conference, Newcastle-on-Tyne, United Kingdom.Rogerson, A. M., & Basanta, G. (2016). Peer-to-peer file sharing and academic integrity in the Internet age. In T. Bretag (Ed.), ''Handbook of Academic Integrity'' (pp. 273-285). Singapore: Springer. as it is deemed to be a violation of
academic integrity Academic integrity is the moral code or ethical policy of academia. The term was popularized by the R.C (USA), who is considered to be the "grandfather of academic integrity". Other prominent academic integrity scholars and advocates include Trace ...
at many schools. Academic file sharing by companies such as Chegg and Course Hero has become a point of particular controversy in recent years. This has led some institutions to provide explicit guidance to students and faculty regarding academic integrity expectations relating to academic file sharing.


Public opinion of file sharing

In 2004, there were an estimated 70 million people participating in online file sharing. According to a
CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio service CBS. CBS News television programs include the '' CBS Evening News'', '' CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs '' CBS News Sunday Morning'', '' 60 Minutes'', and '' 4 ...
poll in 2009, 58% of
Americans Americans are the citizens and nationals of the United States of America.; ; Although direct citizens and nationals make up the majority of Americans, many dual citizens, expatriates, and permanent residents could also legally claim Ame ...
who follow the file-sharing issue, considered it acceptable "if a person owns the music CD and shares it with a limited number of friends and acquaintances"; with 18- to 29-year-olds, this percentage reached as much as 70%. In his survey of file-sharing culture, Caraway (2012) noted that 74.4% of participants believed musicians should accept file sharing as a means for promotion and distribution. This file-sharing culture was termed as cyber socialism, whose legalisation was not the expected cyber-utopia..


Economic impact

According to David Glenn, writing in ''
The Chronicle of Higher Education ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals (staff members and administrators). A subscription is required to re ...
'', "A majority of economic studies have concluded that file-sharing hurts sales". A literature review by Professor Peter Tschmuck found 22
independent studies Independent study is a form of education offered by many high schools, colleges, and other educational institutions. It is sometimes referred to as ''directed study'', and is an educational activity undertaken by an individual with little to no supe ...
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. Three of the studies found no significant impact while the remaining five found a positive impact." 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".Levine, Robert. ''Free Ride: How the Internet Is Destroying the Culture Business and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back'', Bodley Head, February 2011, . This research was disputed by other economists, most notably Stan Liebowitz, who said Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf had made multiple assumptions about the music industry "that are just not correct." 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". However, citing
Nielsen SoundScan Luminate (formerly Nielsen SoundScan, Nielsen Music Products, and MRC Data) is a provider of music sales data. Established by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett in 1991, data is collected weekly and made available every Sunday (for albums sales) and eve ...
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." The RIAA likewise responded that "new releases" and "new creative works" are two separate things. " is 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." A 2006 study prepared by Birgitte Andersen and Marion Frenz, published by
Industry Canada Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED; french: Innovation, Sciences et Développement économique Canada; french: ISDE, label=none)''Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada'' is the applied title under the Federal ...
, was "unable to discover any direct relationship between P2P file-sharing and CD purchases in Canada". 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 The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies an ...
reached the opposite conclusion. "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." Barker thus concludes; "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." According to the 2017 paper "Estimating displacement rates of copyrighted content in the EU" by the
European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...
, illegal usage increases game sales, stating "The overall conclusion is that for games, illegal online transactions induce more legal transactions."


Market dominance

A paper in the 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 hurt new and less-known artists while promoting the work of already popular artists and celebrities. A more recent study that examined pre-release file-sharing of music albums, using BitTorrent software, also discovered positive impacts for "established and popular artists but not newer and smaller artists." According to Robert G. Hammond of
North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State) is a public land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina. Founded in 1887 and part of the University of North Carolina system, it is the largest university in the Carolinas. The univers ...
, an album that leaked one month early would see a modest increase in sales. "This increase in sales is small relative to other factors that have been found to affect album sales."
"File-sharing proponents commonly argue that file-sharing democratizes music consumption by 'levelling the playing field' for new/small artists relative to established/popular artists, by allowing artists to have their work heard by a wider audience, lessening the advantage held by established/popular artists in terms of promotional and other support. My results suggest that the opposite is happening, which is consistent with evidence on file-sharing behaviour."
''Billboard'' cautioned that this research looked only at the pre-release period and not continuous file sharing following a release date. "The problem in believing
piracy Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...
helps sales is deciding where to draw the line between legal and illegal ... Implicit in the study is the fact that both buyers and sellers are required in order for pre-release file sharing to have a positive impact on album sales. Without iTunes, Amazon, and Best Buy, file-sharers would be just file sharers rather than purchasers. If you carry out the 'file-sharing should be legal' argument to its logical conclusion, today's retailers will be tomorrow's file-sharing services that integrate with their respective cloud storage services."


Availability

Many argue that file-sharing has forced the owners of entertainment content to make it more widely available legally through fees or advertising on-demand on the internet. In a 2011 report by Sandvine showed that
Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...
traffic had come to surpass that of BitTorrent.


Copyright issues

File sharing raises copyright issues and has led to many lawsuits. In the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
, some of these lawsuits have even reached the
Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
. For example, in ''
MGM v. Grokster ''MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd.'', 545 U.S. 913 (2005), is a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled unanimously that the defendants, peer-to-peer file sharing companies Grokster and Streamcast (maker of Morpheus), coul ...
'', the Supreme Court ruled that the creators of P2P networks can be held liable if their software is marketed as a tool for copyright infringement. On the other hand, not all file sharing is illegal. Content in the
public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired ...
can be freely shared. Even works covered by
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
can be shared under certain circumstances. For example, some artists, publishers, and
record label A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the pr ...
s grant the public a license for unlimited distribution of certain works, sometimes with conditions, and they advocate free content and file sharing as a promotional tool.


See also

* Comparison of file sharing applications *
File hosting service A file-hosting service, cloud-storage service, online file-storage provider, or cyberlocker is an internet hosting service specifically designed to host user files. It allows users to upload files that could be accessed over the internet afte ...
* File sharing news sites * Graduated response * ''Love for Sale'' (Bilal album), an unreleased but infamously pirated album by
Bilal __NOTOC__ Bilal may refer to: People * Bilal (name) (a list of people with the name) * Bilal ibn Rabah, a companion of Muhammad * Bilal (American singer) * Bilal (Lebanese singer) Places * Bilal Colony, a neighbourhood of Korangi Town in Karac ...
*
Missionary Church of Kopimism The Missionary Church of Kopimism (in Swedish ''Missionerande Kopimistsamfundet''), is a congregation of file sharers who believe that copying information is a sacred virtue and was founded by Isak Gerson, a 19-year-old philosophy student, and ...
* Open Music Model * Publius (publishing system) *
Torrent poisoning Torrent poisoning is 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-infringement organisations as an attempt to prev ...
*
Trade group efforts against file sharing Arts and media industry trade groups, such as the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), strongly oppose and attempt to prevent copyright infringement through file sharing. T ...
*
Warez Warez is a common computing and broader cultural term referring to pirated software (i.e. illegally copied, often after deactivation of anti-piracy measures) that is distributed via the Internet. Warez is used most commonly as a noun, a plural ...


References


Further reading

*Levine, Robert. ''Free Ride: How the Internet Is Destroying the Culture Business and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back'', Bodley Head, February 2011. * Ghosemajumder, Shuman.
Advanced Peer-Based Technology Business Models
'.
MIT Sloan School of Management The MIT Sloan School of Management (MIT Sloan or Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs ...
, 2002 * Silverthorne, Sean.
Music Downloads: Pirates- or Customers?
''. Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, 2004. * Ralf Steinmetz, Klaus Wehrle (Eds)
Peer-to-Peer Systems and Applications
, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 3485, September 2005 * Stephanos Androutsellis-Theotokis and Diomidis Spinellis

ACM Computing Surveys, 36(4):335–371, December 2004. . * 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. The University of Washington. Seattle, WA, USA.


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:File sharing Internet terminology Internet Relay Chat Instant messaging Intellectual property law