Like
nearly everything on the Internet, Napster was created by an 18-year-ol college
dropout. Shawn Fanning created the original Napster P2P software so that
friends could get together online and share files they enjoy.
The
software changed everything. Quickly, Napster’s Web site and software was the
hottest thing on the Internet, with countless people swapping files throughout
the cyber universe.
Napster’s
success led to a flurry of lawsuits in the end. Losing most of those battles, Napster’s
remaining assets were purchased by the company Roxio for $5 Million(US).
Currently, Napster’s Web site is a legal P2P file-sharing site, with users
paying a monthly fee to access the files they want.
Legal File Sharing
As the file sharing of music goes, there are plenty of bands
out there that have no problem with, and actually encourage their music to be
shared. These are usually unsigned bands, however. Once the music companies are
involved, they will want their share.
There are new P2P networks opening almost daily on the
Internet. Wippit and Weed are two that will allow you to trade files for a fee
but free of guilt. Unfortunately, for most of the free networks, the amounts
of, and choices of files can be small.
Most, if not all, record companies are working on sites for
people to buy their music in MP3 form (the form of encoding used for music
files). Make sure to check any file-sharing software you want to use for
compatibility. For example: Apples ITunes Web site has a great library of
songs, but you can only download files to play for Apple’s Ipod.
File-Sharing Programs
P2P programs work on networks. Thus far, no single program
has been able to connect to all of them, though some support multiple networks.
Larger networks include Gnutella, FastTrack, OpenNap. EDonkey and Filetopia.
The FastTrack Network is used by the software programs
KaZaA, Grokster, and Morpheus, with all three being extremely popular P2P
programs currently. These programs are all available for free to download and
use. There are many Web sites available that can help you research P2P
programs, to find the best one for yourself.