Peer-to-Peer - Other Uses

Although there is extensive media attention paid to P2P music filesharing, there are many other uses for this networking software. Peer to peer originally began as a business applications; ways to distribute newsgroups and company messages. Two of the early pioneers for this technology were USENET and FidoNet, which were decentralised networks of peers using the software for vastly different applications than those seen today.

There has been negative publicity towards the P2P function of technology and this has resulted in the belief that P2P only assists in illegal music filesharing. First, one must define the peer to peer function as storing files in a directory that is accessible to users outside a local network. The peer to peer function is only illegal when it breaches applicable copyrighting laws. However, it is also a valuable means for distributing entirely legal material such as public domain books, legal music and audio files, videos, pornography, games and software.

The technology has numerous other uses, such as “significantly reducing the distribution costs of public domain and permissively shared art and speech, as well as reducing the centralised control of that distribution� (Moran, 2004). There are many beneficial elements of peer to peer networking which makes it preferable for business and recreational uses. These benefits include:

• Distributed processing – eliminates the need for large servers and indexes.

• Validity of information – peer searching is always current and does not age, unlike human generated indexes.

• Modular – no dependencies on any specific server.

• Ease of sharing – does not require a publication step to share information.

• Anonymity – designed to obscure the user’s identity.

(Rappoport, 2002)

Despite the media touting filesharing as an illegal practice, many businesses, educational facilities and individuals continue to use peer to peer for any of the previously mentioned purposes.

Legal Music - http://www.furthernet.com

Online Books - Project Gutenberg at http://promo.net/pg/

Audio and Video Files - http://www.magnetmix.com

Peer to Peer Games - http://www.gameablum.com/keyword/peer%20to%20peer/

Peer to Peer Software - http://www.peersoftware.com

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References

Moran, J. (2004) Sharing Peer to Peer Lives On, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel at JS Online, retrieved October 19, 2004 from URL: http://www.jsonline.com/lifestyle/jump/sep04/258340.asp

Rappoport, A. (2002) Peer to Peer Searching, SearchTools.com, retrieved October 19, 2004 from URL: http://www.searchtools.com/info/peer-to-peer.html

Annette Devonshire 15:46, 27 Oct 2004 (EST)