p2p Software

[mattscott306]

First Off- I'm not here to discuss any p2p software in particular, or using it for anything illegal or whatnot. What I want to know is if there are any legal usage for these programs, or were they just created to be a thorn in the entertainment industries backside?

 

[4nr-]

uuuuhh.... kind of stupid question isn't it? of course there's legal things that can be done with p2p software, else the whole concept wouldn't still be around.

 

[mattscott306]

uuuuhh.... kind of stupid question isn't it? of course there's legal things that can be done with p2p software, else the whole concept wouldn't still be around.

Ok- what legal things can be done with it?

 

[4nr-]

Share files...

Like photographs, movies, etc that are not subject to copyright, or are distributed through by the copyright owner. Open source software is often distributed through p2p networks to minimize costs.

A good example of legal p2p usage is perhaps the little gamers books http://www.little-gamers.com/hamham_downloads.php

 

[clevin]

Ok- what legal things can be done with it?

don't let commercial business world cover the humanity of the internet world, there are ppl willing to share they indie works and/or opensource products.

 

[epochblue]

Perhaps one of the biggest uses for P2P protocols like BitTorrent are for Linux ISOs.

Things like BitTorrent spread out the bandwidth utilization so no one person gets slammed. You can apply that distributed-bandwidth model to literally millions of legitimate uses.