File sharing- Illegal?

Lots of people say that limewire and the like are illegal. But, nobody thinks about lending their friend a new cd so they can copy it to their mp3 player. Well, limewire is just the same, people put up files to give people. Are a lot of us breaking the law by sending files over msn/yahoo messenger and lending cds to friends or is file sharing and limewire completely legal?

File sharing- Illegal?cash loan

The programs are not illegal its when copy write protected files are transferred over them. If you are using the software to transfer files you own and have the right to trade it is perfectly legal. But if you are sharing and downloading files that are copy write protected with out explicit authorization from the copy write holder it is illegal.

File sharing- Illegal? loan

It really depends how you think about it. I don%26#039;t like to think of it as illegal because nobody can put you in jail for using limewire and programs like it. All it really is is cheating.|||Its Illegal, file sharing over the internet is breaking the law, the only way you can get around this is if you own the origional copy and download a backup copy, so yea anytime you share music files with friends over email or msn you should not be doing it, however most people do including myself :).|||File sharing- Illegal?

Strickly the sharing of files over the web IS NOT illegal.

What IS illegal is the sharing of copyrighted material WITHOUT the permission of the copyright holder. And that includes DVD%26#039;s, CD%26#039;s, Games, Images, etc...|||loads of people do it so.....i dunno

but your fist answer was soooooooooo long!!!!

think he probably covered it lol!|||Well,you can give your CD to only so many frnds.But,with limewire,once u upload something,millions of people can reach it.So,it%26#039;s being unfair to the artists who made those songs,isn%26#039;t it?Coz they dont get the money they could if there were no limewire.It%26#039;s like CD sharing,on a much much much much much much much much much much larger scale

By,

An Ardent Limewire User.|||even if you bought the cd if you copy it to your pc it is technically illegal although nobody sticks to the law as that law is getting phased out|||File sharing

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See Shared resource for the conventional meaning of file sharing

File sharing usually follows the peer-to-peer (P2P) model, where the files are stored on and served by personal computers of the users. Most people who engage in file sharing on the Internet both provide (upload) files and receive files (download).

P2P file sharing is distinct from file trading in that downloading files from a P2P network does not require uploading, although some networks either provide incentives for uploading such as credits or forcing the sharing of files being currently downloaded. Napster started this whole wave and has since became a legal spot for downloads with a fee schedule.

Contents [hide]

1 First P2P-generation: Server-client

1.1 Web-based sharing

1.2 File Sharing On The Social Graph

1.3 Server-client-protocols

2 Second P2P-Generation: Decentralization

3 Third P2P-Generation: indirect and encrypted

4 The fourth P2P-Generation: Streams over P2P

5 Economic impact

6 Legal and copyright issues

7 Public perception

8 Attacks on peer-to-peer networks

9 Risks

10 Current known new file sharing networks

11 See also

12 References

13 Further reading

14 External links

[edit] First P2P-generation: Server-client

The first generation of peer-to-peer file sharing networks had a centralized file list. In the centralized peer-to-peer model, a user would send a search to the centralized server of what they were looking for. The server then sends back a list of peers that have the data and facilitates the connection and download.

The first file-sharing programs marked themselves by inquiries to a server, either the data to the download held ready or in appropriate different Peers and so-called Nodes further-obtained, so that one could download there. Two examples were Napster (today using a pay system) and eDonkey2000 in the server version (today, likewise with Overnet and KAD - network decentralized).

[edit] Web-based sharing

Webhosting is also used for file sharing, since it makes it possible to exchange privately. In small communities popular files can be distributed very quickly and efficiently. Web hosters are independent of each other; therefore contents are not distributed further. Other terms for this are one-click hosting and web-based sharing.

[edit] File Sharing On The Social Graph

Recently, Facebook opened up its API to 3rd party developers that has allowed for a new type of file-sharing service to emerge. Box.net and FreeDrive.com [3] are two examples of companies that have specific Facebook Applications that allow file sharing to be easily accomplished between friends.

[edit] Server-client-protocols

Audiogalaxy - Service ended in the middle of 2002.

Direct Connect

Napster - Closed in its original form in July 2001, since changed to a fee-based service.

Scour Exchange - The second exchange network after Napster. No longer exists.

Soulseek - Still popular today despite being relatively old, with more than 120,000 users online at any time.

TinyP2P - 15 lines Python - SOURCE code

WinMX - The original Frontcode servers were switched off in September 2005, but alternate servers can be used by installing MXPie Patch. MXPie Patch and WinMX can be downloaded at MXPie.com.

[edit] Second P2P-Generation: Decentralization

After Napster encountered legal troubles, Justin Frankel of Nullsoft set out to create a network without a central index server, and Gnutella was the result. Unfortunately, the Gnutella model of all nodes being equal quickly died from bottlenecks as the network grew from incoming Napster refugees. FastTrack solved this problem by having some nodes be %26#039;more equal than others%26#039;.

By electing some higher-capacity nodes to be indexing nodes, with lower capacity nodes branching off from them, FastTrack allowed for a network that could scale to a much larger size. Gnutella quickly adopted this model, and most current peer-to-peer networks implement this design, as it allows for large and efficient networks without central servers.

Also included in the second generation are distributed hash tables (DHTs), which help solve the scalability problem by electing various nodes to index certain hashes (which are used to identify files), allowing for fast and efficient searching for any instances of a file on the network. This is not without drawbacks; perhaps most significantly, DHTs do not directly support keyword searching (as opposed to exact-match searching).

The best examples are Gnutella, Kazaa or eMule with Kademlia, whereby Kazaa has still a central server for logging in. eDonkey2000/Overnet, Gnutella, FastTrack and Ares Galaxy have summed up approx. 10.3 million users (as of April 2006, according to slyck.com). This number does not necessarily correspond to the actual number of persons who use these networks; it must be assumed that some use multiple clients for different networks.

Multi-Network-Clients

See Multi-network applications

Further networks or clients

See other networks

[edit] Third P2P-Generation: indirect and encrypted

All or part of this article may be confusing or unclear.

Please help clarify the article. Suggestions may be on the talk page. (January 2007)

Main article: Anonymous P2P

The third generation of peer-to-peer networks are those that have anonymity features built in. Examples of anonymous networks are ANts P2P, RShare, Freenet, I2P, GNUnet and Entropy.

A degree of anonymity is realized by routing traffic through other users%26#039; clients, which have the function of network nodes. This makes it harder for someone to identify who is downloading or who is offering files. Most of these programs also have strong encryption to resist traffic sniffing.

Friend-to-friend networks only allow already-known users (also known as %26quot;friends%26quot;) to connect to the user%26#039;s computer, then each node can forward requests and files anonymously between its own %26quot;friends%26quot; nodes.

Third-generation networks have not reached mass usage for file sharing because most current implementations incur too much overhead in their anonymity features, making them slow or hard to use. However, in countries where very fast fiber-to-the-home Internet access is commonplace, such as Japan, a number of anonymous file-sharing clients have already reached high popularity.

An example might be: Petra gives a file to Oliver, then Oliver gives the file to Anna. Petra and Anna thus never become acquainted and thus are protected. Often used virtual IP addresses obfuscate the user%26#039;s network location because Petra only knows the virtual IP of Anna. Although real IP%26#039;s are always necessary to establish a connection between Petra and Oliver, nobody knows if Anna really requested and Petra really send the file or if they just forward it (As long as they won%26#039;t tell anyone their virtual IP%26#039;s!). Additionally all transfers are encrypted, so that even the network administrators cannot see what was sent to whom. Example software includes WASTE, JetiANts, Tor and I2P. These clients differ greatly in their goals and implementation. WASTE is designed only for small groups and may therefore be considered Darknet; ANts and I2P are public Peer-to-Peer systems, with anonymization provided exclusively by routing reach.

Ants network

ANts P2P

JetiANts

Hornet

Mute network

MUTE

Kommute - KDE

I2P network

I2P

I2Phex - Gnutella over I2P

iMule - eDonkey (Kademlia) over I2P

Azureus - has I2P plugin

Retroshare-Network (F2F Instant Messenger)

Retroshare Instant Messenger - Retroshare Chat Messenger for privacy of filesharing

other networks or clients

Alliance

Freenet

GNUnet

Nodezilla

OFF System

PowerFolder

Proxyshare

RShare

Share

Tor

WinNY

Zultrax

[edit] The fourth P2P-Generation: Streams over P2P

Apart from the traditional file sharing there are services that send streams instead of files over a P2P network. Thus one can hear radio and watch television without any server involved -- the streaming media is distributed over a P2P network. It is important that instead of a treelike network structure, a swarming technology known from BitTorrent is used. Best examples are Peercast, Miro, Cybersky and demo TV.

General

Broadcatching

Podcast

Tree structure

Peercast

CoolStreaming

Swarm structure such as BitTorrent

TVUPlayer

Joost

PPLive

Icecast

PeerCast

PPStream

SopCast

MediaBlog

Vuze

[edit] Economic impact

The tone or style of this article or section may not be appropriate for Wikipedia.

Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia%26#039;s guide to writing better articles for suggestions.(January 2008)

Since illegally downloading files has become more common, there has been much controversy about whether infringement of copyrighted music has either hurt or helped CD sales.

Some economic studies have found that file sharing has a negative impact on record sales. For example, three papers published in the April 2006 issue of the Journal of Law and Economics (Liebowitz, Rob and Waldfogel, Zentner) all found harm from filesharing. Alejandro Zentner notes in another paper published in 2005 (Topics in Economic Analysis %26amp; Policy), that music sales have globally dropped from approximately $38 billion in 1999 to $32 billion in 2003, and that this downward trend coincides with the advent of Napster in June of 1999. Finally, using aggregate data Stan J. Liebowitz argues