If you are in the least bit tech savvy both on the computer and the internet, chances are that you have either heard of or have used an application for p2p downloads. For those who have no idea what a p2p download is, p2p stands for peer to peer networking. You should know that most websites are hosted on centralized servers and all the information is stored on there. With a peer to peer network, the website traffic for p2p downloading is shared be individual users hooked up into this p2p network. The software and hardware devices can operate with other special needs. This resource sharing boosts speed and has other advantages. This is also known as a decentralized network.
The p2p download has caught on in a big way. In the early 2000’s many downloadable file sharing programs such as WinMX, BearShare and eDonkey existed. Many of these free p2p networking programs and applications. From them, you could take advantage of free p2p music downloads as well as images and other files. The, the lawsuits about copyrights started being instigated by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). It seems that during those free p2p music downloads, a number of copyrighted songs were exchanged illegally and the RIAA did not take kindly to the fact that millions of people were getting away with these p2p free downloads of their clients’ music without having to pay like everyone else who purchases a CD.
The biggest media spotlight was on Napster. They had p2p music downloads for free and had to cease and desist in addition to paying gigantic legal costs. These days, Napster still exists as a download p2p program, only there is a fee to download the songs.
Of course, there are still plenty of free p2p download sites on the internet. You can still file share with other things as well as non-copyrighted music. Many of them, in conformance with the onslaught of copyright lawsuits, now direct you to a subscription service each time you attempt to download a copyrighted song.
Free p2p downloads include swapping files for your own mix of music, video files, picture files, documents and even other programs. These peer to peer downloads are not going to go away. The p2p download has many positive aspects going for it such as increased bandwidth for uploads and downloads, increased storage and even more power. P2p downloading will become more popular as time goes on for other industries than just personal use.