FILE SHARING

There are legal ways of computer file sharing safely and easily



It was found through a survey of advertising spending by big companies that there is a trend to cut down on press and broadcast outlets and to concentrate on the Internet. The reason was that more and more people are spending time in cyber-space and consequently less time in front of the goggle box and reading the printed media.

Now, of all the uses to which the Internet can be put one of the most popular and controversial is file sharing. This is not just downloading in a one-way system where you pay somebody for permission to take into your computer something that he has on his.

File sharing is literally the sharing of the contents of one’s hard disk, or a part thereof, with other people who have reciprocal access to what you have.

This activity first came to my attention when my family allowed our East European lodger to use our computer (the very one I am using to write this) and he enthusiastically file shared nose to tail to the point where the ISP (Internet service provider) brought in its fair usage policy, as a result of which we had to change to something else. Our lodger is now not allowed to use our Internet, or our computer either for that matter.

Be that as it may, the fact is that millions of people are involved in file sharing, bringing in all sorts of legal and technical considerations to the usage of computer technology.

Paul Parr, a professional computer consultant, has this to say to our readership: “It depends on the files you are trying to share. I mean, if you know it does not have the copyright you know it is illegal.

“You know, they make it easier and easier. The more the punters say they are willing to do it the more the suppliers will supply.

“I disagree with downloading and using software illegally. People have to be paid to create the software, but on the other hand I think that software should be cheaper.

“I will not give an opinion about punishment. Fileplanet ( a downloading Internet site) is legal. Peer to peer networking is what the RIAA (Recording Industry of America) is coming down hard on.”

I have heard that, in practice, as regards software for office use, unofficially, the software manufacturers do not mind students downloading their programs for private study but frown on businesses using pirated software.

In fact, it may in the long run benefit a manufacturer to have his software available to students as pirated copies. If a person is familiar with, say, a DTP package, while studying, it follows that when he goes to work he will ask his boss to use the package with which he is familiar, for which the boss will have to pay to be within the law.

However, that rosy situation does not apply to leisure applications software such as motion pictures and games. If I download the film Titanic from somebody’s hard disk in Hong Kong it follows that I will never, while in possession of it, purchase the video or DVD of it.

Ditto with games. At this time I am interested in getting hold of Fritz the computer chess program. If I go to PC World or one of the big audio-visual retail outlets I will have to pay in full, including copyright fees. If I simply download it from somebody in Sweden through a peer-to-peer system I get the same thing for next to nothing and the manufacturer of Fritz gets nothing.

File transfer is one of the original applications of the internet, preceding even email. FTP (file transfer protocol) evolved as a common standard for file sharing and is still used to this day.
A few years ago the term file sharing was used for client server disk sharing (also known as shared file access or disk mounting). Today, when people use the term “file sharing” they are referring to the exchange of files over peer-to-peer file sharing networks.
It was during the late 1990s that file sharing entered popular consciousness with the MP3 players. After a while the webhosts retaliated by closing down sites which contained MP3 items which could be downloaded.
It was the advent of peer to peer networking that brought file sharing to the man in the street.
Napster became the first P2P file-sharing tool and provided a system whereby its punters could share their files. Eventually, Napster was shut down by the music industry for performing rights reasons; some artists such as Dr Dre and Metallica supported it’s closure. .
Even before its legal problems, the file sharing community created an alternative called OpenNap which is a reverse engineered version of the Napster protocol and has survived the demise of Napster with the assistance of the Napigator Server list which sets out to target all the servers and networks.
Afterward, a decentralised network known as Gnutella appeared. This service was fully open source and allowed users to search for almost any file type; users could find, more than just MP3s, on the networks. It was created in response to the threat posed towards centralized bodies like Napster. The purpose behind decentralization is to prevent one broken link from compromising the network.
Gnutella continues to define file sharing today, forming the extremes at both ends of the law in the wake of a series of civil lawsuits filed against computer users by the RIAA (which began in September,2003), however.
Napster has departed and left a gap, which to some extent has since been filled by BitTorrent and others. Gnutella and BitTorrent are free and open protocols and services.
Napster has been partially resurrected as a commercial online music service that competes with other commercial services like iTunes and Rhapsody. Most file-sharing systems have since sought to ride the line between these two extremes.
However, there are legal methods of file sharing and there is nothing to stop people from sharing, say, personal videos and company data to interested parties and information which is intended to be public.
One thing that has to be borne in mind is the sheer memory space involved in film downloading. Many software items are under 20 MB while a television programme would occupy about 10 times as much. This kind of downloading would require giant servers and massive broadband demands on sources of data. File sharing spreads the load tremendously.

In an increasingly digitalised world it follows that almost anything can be scanned and then turned into a computer file. The measures to prevent this such as encryption codes on DVDs can and do get by-passed by knowledgeable people.

There are instruments which can take away copy protection from paid for music such that it could be played on any device and not the specific device it was built for.

This is piracy and is regarded as such by the music industry. For example, if somebody has a vinyl LP of the Rolling Stones’ music and turns it into a tape cassette so that he can listen to it while travelling, that is technically illegal.

Western civilisation places a great emphasis on experimentation and innovation. It follows that in order to motivate the questing approach to life the inventors and creators should be rewarded. That is the nub of the problem.

If I buy a piece of music or a film (and more and more these days, with increased memory, expensive software) and then make numerous copies to sell or give to all my friends, enemies and relations the reward coming to the makers of the sought after item is thin.

At bottom, apart from file sharing proper, it is eminently possible for anybody to buy, say, a piece of music or a games program on a CD and copy it onto his computer’s hard disc with one of the standard tools. From that point on he can make an indefinite number of copies to distribute to his friends, if he wishes.

I used to know a man who left university with such a cloud over his head that he could not get a computing job (he was a software engineer) and subsequently received his income by buying software and selling copies thereof to his contacts.

In this way, software piracy joins the building industry and the seamier sections of the motor trade as a means of getting paid work when almost all other channels of income generation are closed. Notorious persons with criminal records will, naturally, be interested.

Defenders of file sharing say that the practice provides a way of giving the oxygen of publicity to little known bands who, otherwise, would find the doors of establishment publicity closed to them.

It is a bit like the student using pirated software to learn Quark Xpress DTP. When his student days are over and he walks into his first workplace he will want, demand even, the provision of fully paid for Quark DTP because he knows it already.

If you are interested in legal file sharing go to: http://www.bittorrent.com/, http://www.bpi.co.uk/, http://www.btfaq.com/, http://www.gnutella.org/, http://www.kazaa.com/, http://www.limewire.org/, http://www.mpaa.org/ and http://www.pro-music.org/.

Of the above, Bittorrent is said to provide excellent amenities for fully legal file sharing such as fast download speeds, depending on your equipment, and precautions against the inadvertent ingestion of unwanted spyware, adware and other nasties.

As the inscription on the front desk of the Filipino police station states: “Honesty is still the best policy.”