File sharing: From Napster to BitTorrent



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In 1999, an American college student named Shawn Fanning created Napster. Napster was a file sharing computer service which was mainly used to share music in the format of MP3. 1.5 million people were using Napster in 2001 before it got shut down, after being dragged to court by the Recording Industry Association of America. (Napster 2012. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.)

Napster was the first-generation of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, and after followed other P2P like for example ‘KaZaA’ which was created in 2000 by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. (Niklas Zennström 2012. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.)

Most of these different file sharing programs seems to have gotten in troubles with the copy right law, and many faced lawsuits. But it looks as many people won’t give up on file sharing, as it today is still very common – even though it is not all legal. I believe that the most common file sharing program today is BitTorrent, and these days’ people also download movies and TV series in addition to music files. 

To download files using a BitTorrent such at uTorrent which is one of the best clients (as it is free to use and comes without adware or spyware) you will need to go to a torrent search engine. There are many different search engines. Examples of these are ‘MiniNova’ and ‘the Pirate Bay’. Once you go there you will have to put in what you want to download in the search field and you will get options and then select the file you want. When you chose to download a torrent, it will automatically show up in your BitTorrent. And you're done - the download time depends on your internet speed. ('Using BitTorrent' 2010, Apc, 30, 4, p. 42, Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre)

I think Napster influenced today’s file-sharing because it is stilling going on, and I do not think people will stop sharing files in spite of the laws. Maybe one day it will be legal, but I understand that sharing files may affect the movie and music industry, as they probably lose money on people not buying their products because they choose to download it instead.  


References: 

'Using BitTorrent' 2010, Apc, 30, 4, p. 42, Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre, EBSCOhost, viewed 13 August 2012.

Napster 2012. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August, 2012, from http://www.britannica.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/EBchecked/topic/754550/Napster 

Niklas Zennström 2012. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August, 2012, from http://www.britannica.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/EBchecked/topic/1378578/Niklas-Zennstrom

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