P2P File-Sharing Essays -- Computers Software Technology Essays

P2P File-Sharing INTRODUCTION Technology is moving at an ever-increasing rate, which faces us with many new issues as we move into a digital age. Gone are the days where property and transactions were physically tangible. A medium of an electronic nature is now today’s preferred choice as opposed to traditional means. This new electronic medium is hardly tangible yet it is becoming more pervasive in our lives. So what exactly are some of these technologies and issues associated with them? This paper will look into both the domestic and the international issues associated with MP3 and Peer-to-Peer technologies over the Internet. So what started the big fuss associated with Peer-to-Peer technologies like Napster? We will begin by looking at the original motivation behind Internet file sharing software. Enter MP3. The MP3 Craze The term MP3 is now a household name. The technology is widely known and can be found in a multitude of software as well as in dedicated playback devices. However, MP3s were not widely known until 1998 when a free windows based player named Winamp was released 1. Lets take a brief look at how MP3s came to be. MP3 is shorthand for MPEG-Layer 3, which stands for the Moving Picture Experts Group, Audio Layer III 1. The MP3 compression algorithm was developed by the Fraunhofer Institut in Erlangen, Germany during the mid-1980s 1. For those who are not already familiar with the technology, MP3 encoding essentially compresses a large sound file into a much smaller file with little noticeable sound degradation. Standard compression reduces the size of a sound file by ten times, which results in files that are approximately 1 MB per minute 2. This proved to be a powerful tool, especially as the Internet... ...tory.cfm?id=70>. RIAA â€Å"FAQ On Napster and Digital Music.† RIAA.org. . Sax, Jodi, â€Å"Recording Artists Speak Out On Napster†, February 2001, . Schumacher-Rasmussen, Eric. â€Å"Napster Dividing Artists From Prince 2 Dave Matthews.† MTV.com News. 2 Mar. 2001 . Smith, Seagrumn. â€Å"From Napster to Kazaa: The Battle Over Peer-To-Peer File Sharing Goes International.† Duke Law. 28 Mar. 2003 . Spinello, Richard A. â€Å"Frameworks for Ethical Analysis.† Chapter 2 of Ethical Aspect of Information Technology (Prentice Hall) 1 Jan. 1995 Yang, Beverly., Garcia-Molina, Hector., â€Å"Comparing Hybrid Peer-to-Peer Systems.† Technical Report, Stanford University. Feb. 2001