Unclogging the Legitimate P2P

Unclogging the Legitimate P2P. Abstract: concept is that there are many PCs in homes and offices that lie idle for large chunks of time. Why not leverage these idle resources to do Peer-to-peer systems have recently gained a lot something useful, like share computation or of attention in social, academic, and commercial share content? communities. Peer-to-peer systems have become synonymous with file-sharing as Peer-to-peer systems, beginning with Napster, systems like Napster, Gnutella, Kazaa and Gnutella, and several other related systems, BitTorrent have enjoyed explosive popularity became immensely popular in the past few over the last few years. The awareness of P2P years, primarily because they offered a way for networking grew from the illicit ‘sharing’ of music people to get music without paying for it. files, much to the chagrin of content holders. However, under the hood, these systems represent a paradigm shift from the usual web It has been long believed that the sole purpose client/server model, where there are no of P2P is to facilitate users in indulging in non “servers;” every system acts as a peer, and by legitimate content piracy. P2P service providers virtue of the huge number of peers, objects can have had to deal with numerous law suits with be widely replicated, providing the opportunity accusations of Copyright Infringement against for high availability and scalability, despite the them. In this paper We take the position that lack of centralized infrastructure. P2P has more on offer than just an easy way of ‘pirating’ digital content on the Web. We provide Peer-to-Peer offers an easy hassle free form of an argument that despite the prevailing communication between two hosts without the perceptions of P2P as synonymous with content need of a centralized server.P2P data currently piracy, P2P is emerging as viable means of contributes to 44% of all consumer traffic moved distributing legitimate content. across the Internet, and a total of 33.6% in North America alone. With content owners continually 1. Introduction: looking to P2P as a cost effective tool to distribute their content, that figure is only going A peer-to-peer (P2P) distributed system is one to grow, the market researchers believe. Of the in which participants rely on one another for P2P material distributed, over 70% consists of service, rather than solely relying on dedicated audio and video files, with the number of audio and often centralized infrastructure. Instead of files transferred far outweighing the amount of strictly decomposing the system into clients video and other files. (which consume services) and servers (which provide them), peers in the system can elect to Napster was the pioneer in introducing the P2P provide services as well as consume them. The networks to share music files on the internet in membership of a P2P system is relatively 1999. Napster's winning idea was in giving P2P, unpredictable: service is provided by the peers for free, to the masses. At the same time as that happen to be participating at any given time. Napster was released three factors greatly In some cases, peer-to-peer communications is increased its mass popularity - higher implemented by giving each communication bandwidth, more powerful desktop processors node both server and client capabilities. In and cheaper storage. Add to this the fact that for recent usage, peer-to-peer has come to many American homes, Internet access is flat describe applications in which users can use the rate, which led to people leaving their computers Internet to exchange files with each other on 24/7 downloading music. directly or through a mediating server. One of the early driving forces behind the peer-to-peer However the huge growth of Napster was a Section 3 we will identify the primary arguments great concern for record companies around the identifying P2P as content provider’s folly by world, and on April 13th 2000, nearly one year providing illegal content and in the following after its release, Rock Band Metallica sued sections describe the legitimate uses of P2P Napster for copyright infringement following which are on an ascent. which Napster had to pay 26 million to songwriters and publishers. This was just the 3. Counterclaims: beginning of a long series of lawsuits against P2P service providers for copyright infringement It is claimed that P2P have little to zero which included the lawsuit against Grokster by legitimate use and hence came the inferences MGM Inc in which Grokster was held liable for that P2P equals piracy. The concepts of P2P copyright violation by the Supreme Court. and Copyrights have been closely related with content providers expressing their concern over illegal distribution of their content on the Web. 2. Argument: The lawsuits filed against some major P2P service providers stand a testimony to this fact. The nature of digital file-sharing technology inevitably implicates copyright law. First, since The infamous A&M Records Inc v Napster Inc every digital file is “fixed” for purposes of lawsuit exposed the primary short comings of a copyright law (whether on a hard drive, CD, or P2P service in failing to provide legal content merely in RAM), the files being shared generally much to the annoyance of content providers. qualify as copyrighted works. Second, the Napster provided a platform for users to upload transmission of a file from one person to another and download music files in a compressed results in a reproduction, a distribution, and digital format. The plaintiffs were major record possibly a public performance (in the world of companies who saw the potential for this copyright law, “public performance” includes the technology to impact their sales, and quickly act of transmitting a copyrighted work to the filed suit against Napster as a "contributory and public). To a copyright lawyer, every vicarious copyright infringer." The United States unauthorized reproduction, distribution, and District Court found that Napster had contributed public performance requires an explanation, and to the infringement of copyrights owned by the thus file-sharing systems seem suspicious from plaintiffs. Napster tried to invoke the betamax the outset defense which had helped Sony Corp prove its innocence against Universal Studios but this did The Widespread notion of P2P is that it does not not help as Napster was held responsible for the serve any purpose more than just providing violation. illegal digital content on the web. P2P have been often referred to as the ‘Bad Boys of Content’. The fundamental reason for this notion is the The Second landmark case was that of MGM number of copyright infringement cases against Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. in which the P2P service providers. The effects of this were Supreme Court unanimously held that defendant that P2P have been synonymous with piracy of P2P file sharing companies Grokster and digital content leading to the widely held Streamcast (maker of Morpheus) could be sued for inducing copyright infringement for acts taken perceptions that P2P has little legitimate use. in the course of marketing file sharing software. The plaintiffs were a consortium of 28 of the We, though agree that much of the earlier use of largest entertainment companies (led by Metro- P2P was taken in providing this type of content Goldwyn-Mayer studios). The case has been on the Web, it has moved on from that state in called the most important copyright infringement which numerous legitimate P2P uses have been case in decades. Following this, Grokster announced that it would no longer be providing identified and efforts are going to exploit the peer-to-peer service to its users. decentralized, fault tolerant architecture of P2P to provide more legal services in P2P. In For a long time now, P2P service providers have rise. This forms the basis for us not to support been on the edge treading a fine line between the view that Peer-to-Peer has no legitimate legitimacy and piracy. A study conducted by the use. Multimedia Intelligence group state that among all of the internet traffic 44% is P2P and almost 4. Legitimate P2P, Current all of it is illegal. Even in North America P2P traffic, which is mostly illegal constitutes 33% of Scenario: the total internet traffic. These are astounding figures which indicate that P2P technology has The purpose and drive towards building legal been flourishing despite the numerous copyright P2P has been on a rise. With more content infringement cases that P2P have had to deal providers realizing the importance of P2P in with. providing content at a low price, an increasing number of legitimate uses of P2P have come A new study conducted by MCPS-PRS Alliance forward. P2P is "starting to see a lot more and Big Champagne, an online media legitimate uses," says Frank Dickson of measurement company, claims that MultiMedia Intelligence. The Company’s new downloading through P2P is ‘entrenched’. report on P2P growth projects an astounding Researchers analyzed the downloading of 400 percent increase in such Internet traffic over Radiohead's new album InRainbows – which the next five years. But more surprising than the was made freely available through an official growth rate, which has been in decline now for website. Some 2.3 million people downloaded some time, is the fact that it's P2P's lawful uses Radiohead’s latest album from BitTorrent that are seeing the biggest growth. sources - during the two months it was legally available for free. Not only did many more fans For small content providers, especially illegally download the album than those who companies involved in video, paying for a bought it in shops, they downloaded it from content delivery network can eat up a significant illegal P2P and torrent sites like Pirate Bay than chunk of revenue.

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