COPYRIGHT AND P2P IMPACT

Sharing systems “peer-to-peer” (P2P) is no longer in the reserved domain of web customers, who are adepts of music or movies downloads. The distribution of legal contents in this way is becoming a fully developed commercial activity. Although it is often associated with the unlawful sharing of music or movie files, P2P networks enable direct exchanges between users, without needing servers or mediators. P2P includes many applications related to a lot of domains and uses, such as instant messaging, idea sharing, document or file sharing. If P2P allows the legal spreading of works that are not protected globally, then P2P would become the vehicle of sharing copyrighted files which is unlawful.

Firstly, I would like to differentiate between the different areas that use P2P. One can find P2P system in the world of education and of professional training. In this field it allows trainers or pedagogues to turn courses and programs into digital format. I find this utilization useful because a collective synergy can take place. Listening to music streaming is also a function of P2P. Sometimes, the goal of streaming is to provide a way to make radio or music available in non-commercial P2P (for example music you can listen to on MySpace). This allows everyone to stream music, radio, or TV shows even with a slow bandwidth. By using this network one can find some conventional radios where you can listen to live or delayed streaming. This P2P vision is one tool for customers to discover new artists.
According to the computing grid, one of the first P2P applications is to multiply computing power and to facilitate data mass storage. This could allow a company to optimize its information park by using untapped computer resources.
Therefore I can list several different functionalities of peer to peer network. Unfortunately, the most used application is still the sharing of music or movies, which are often protected by a copyright.

Despite the