File sharing is the practice of
distributing or providing access to digitally stored information such
as audios, videos, documents, etc. File sharing is very convenient
for people to share files with family members, friends and/or
classmates/teachers. There are many ways to share files across the
internet such as FTP, SFTP, peer-to-peer file sharing, etc. However,
most of people are intended to share music files which have copyright
protected.
In 1999, Napster was the first company
provided peer-to-peer file sharing system. But, couple years later it
was sued and lost by the A&M Records company, which caused
Napster to shut down to comply with a court order. This drove
millions of users to other peer-to-peer applications and file sharing
continued its growth. And there were a few peer-to-peer applications
came out such as LimeWire, Kazaa, BitTorrent, isoHunt, etc. Some of
them are still active until now.
Picture from buydig.com
The legal debate surrounding file
sharing has caused many lawsuits. According to CBS news in 2009, 58%
of Americans who followed the file sharing issue, considered it
acceptable if a person owned a music CD and shared it with family or
friends. However, the Record companies stated that they lost money
because of unauthorized music sharing. There were two-third of 22
studies conclude that unauthorized music sharing has impacted the
recorded music sales.
Today, there are still a few software
and companies provide file sharing or file holder. As a student, I
see the two popular companies are Google and Dropbox. Google has
Google Drive application, and Dropbox has Dropbox application
(sometimes called 'Box'). These two applications work as a file
holder. A person can upload and share files to any one they want.
It's very convenient for students and teachers to share lectures or
turn in homework using these applications. I can also share projects
with teammates so that we can free up some space for my mailbox. I
have never tried to share music files via Google Drive or Dropbox so
I'm not quite sure if they let us doing that or not.
Picture from makeuseof.com
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