P2P Music Sharing (B)

From Isopedia

1 What is P2P music sharing?
2 What is the history of the service and how does P2P sharing work?
3 What kind of changes has P2P sharing experienced so far?
4 Who uses P2P?
5 Established firms in the market
6 Customer Profile
7 Substitute products/services
8 Future of the market
9 Sources
10 Team Members

What is P2P music sharing?

P2P music sharing was one of the greater technological innovations of the twentieth century. P2P technology is a type of distributed computing software that uses decentralized sharing, allowing for individual computers to share files directly amongst themselves, instead of having to connect to various computers in order to retrieve data. By eliminating the need for a centralized storing point for files, peer to peer makes it easier and faster to transfer files from one computer to another. Many types of files are shared amongst peers; they include, audio, video, photographs, word processing and software. Since these files are being shared and not stored on a centralized hard drive, it reduces the need for maintenance and energy costs directly related to data collection and file sharing. In addition, it frees up hard drive space and reduces storage cost for businesses such as accounting and inventory data services. File sharing also allows the same benefit to consumers.

What is the history of the service and how does P2P sharing work?

Peer to peer sharing operates in several different ways to serve a user. In July 1999, the publication of “Freenet” protocol was released and in September of 1999, Napster was the first big program to join the wave of peer to peer file sharing. Napster functioned through a centralized index that offered a network where files could be shared. This index was situated in a centralized server where people could connect to the internet and obtain these files through Napster’s software. The user could specify a particular song or file through a search query, and the server would respond with the peers that have the specified file available to share. The person who searched for the file could then obtain it by requesting it from the other peer. Because of a rapid decline in the music industry, the U.S. court got involved and made music sharing illegal. The concept of sharing music is a direct violation of copy right laws. “Copy right law reserves certain rights exclusively to the owner of the copy right, including the rights to reproduce, distribute, and publicly perform the work.” (www.eff.org) (Copy rights)

What kind of changes has P2P sharing experienced so far?

Legal controversy and the lawsuit against Napster forced many programs to discontinue file sharing through a central-server. Programs began to use a protocol called FastTrack, where ordinary nodes and super nodes were used instead of a central-server. In this FastTrack protocol, the “super nodes” basically perform the same role that the central-server did for Napster; however, in this particular software, an ordinary node links to a super node when initiating a file query. Once the search is performed, the super node seeks its directory and sends the ordinary node any files that match the search. Now the user can click on any of the files that appear. This will create a peer-to-peer connection allowing the searcher to obtain the file from the peer of his choice.

Second coming programs such as Kazaa took advantage of P2P music sharing and a faster internet. Songs on Kazaa are now able to be downloaded in less than ten minutes opposed to the 30 or 40 minutes it took through Napster. Also, movies files were now available through Kazaa. Peer-to-peer file sharing software began to take off and nearly every computer had a P2P program on it.

Who uses P2P?

Peer-to-peer technology serves as a great way for consumers, businesses, academic institutions and government agencies to get substantial amounts of information, quickly. The current commercial uses of P2P technology are the licensed distribution of music, games, software and movies. Peer-to-peer sharing also has non commercial uses throughout several academic universities. An example of this is the LionShare project at Pennsylvania State University which uses a closed P2P network to aid students in academic research. P2P sharing has many valuable uses throughout computer networks. An example of P2P technology used by the government is NASA’s World Wind Program. It uses BitTorrent, a downloading system, which enables the use of satellites by NASA to see any place in the world.

Established firms in the market

Although the original P2P music sharing company, Napster, was shut down in July 2001 by the U.S court, other companies quickly took its place. LimeWire, Bearshare, Kazaa, and Morpheus are just some of the software programs that are still being used today. As P2P music sharing continued to exist, the Supreme Court decided in 2005 that companies were liable for their user’s illegal actions. This allowed the music industry to sue people who were downloading music as well as the site they were downloading from. The supreme court ruling and the lawsuits that followed forced some companies out of business and others such as Napster to legitimize. However there are still companies that provide illegal downloading of music.

Customer Profile

At any time there are up to 10 million P2P users online, mostly consisting of teenagers and college students. Eighty Eight percent of the users, which are between the ages eight and eighteen, know that P2P music sharing is illegal, but still continue to download songs. When downloading the songs, the costumers are looking to find free, easy to use, high quality music.

In an attempt to prevent illegal downloading the Recording Industry Association of America brought lawsuits against 11,000 users, but it has not had the affect they desired. While there was an initial decline after the publicized disputes, the numbers started to increase again a few months later.

While P2P music downloads were initially thought to be the cause of the decline in record sells, recent data shows no correlation. Music sales have increased in the last years, despite the on going illegal downloading. One explanation of this unexpected event is said to be that the customers use the free downloaded songs as a preview, and then later buy the whole CD if they enjoy the music.

Substitute products/services

As P2P music sharing has been attacked, companies such as iTunes and Rhapsody have been a popular legal alternative to download music on the internet. The companies have the benefit of being easy to use, reliable, fast, legal, and safe; however, the music has a fee and there is a more limited selection of songs.

Future of the market

The future of the market is still unknown, but it is clear that changes will be made. All companies have to decide whether they want to shut down, become legitimate, or find another way to evade detection. If a company chooses to legitimize they have to significantly reduce their library so users can only access the copyrighted songs that are licensed for sale. They also have to create a payment scheme for their users; an example of this would be iTunes 99 cents per song or Rhapsody’s flat rate. In a different direction, there has been an attempt to create an overall internet fee that would permit users to access music through P2P downloading. This would enable music companies to make some profit, while giving people more music options.

Despite the research that claims P2P downloading is down, there is evidence to suggest that the downloading is just not as easily detected. As technology becomes more advanced, it seems that the music downloading is hiding, rather than declining. Even with the increase use of iTunes, the amount of songs downloaded on legal programs is insignificant compared to the number of songs downloaded illegally. The actions that have been taken by the music industry could not end the P2P market and they do not have a reliable plan for the future. No matter what happens, it is clear that P2P music downloading is not going disappear as quickly as people first envisioned.