Blog: P2P

File sharing is when you send out a document, image, PDF, or anything from your computer to another over the internet. File sharing is something that occurs everyday for almost everyone in modern days. For example, when a student submits an assignment on blackboard, it is considered file sharing because you are sending your work or file to your professor over the internet. P2P file sharing or peer to peer file sharing is the act of sharing your software, content, documents  and many more over the internet where some of those content may be copyrighted and would be illegal to share to another user. According to, "The BitTorrent Effect", BitTorrent is one of the largest and most successful peer-to-peer programs ever made. BitTorrent was created by Bram Cohen and he was surprised by the popularity it had gain throughout the internet with and expectation of hitting 40 million users just a few years after he had launched his program.  BitTorrent allows users to torrent their software or gain access to free content such as movies, software, documents, and much more. Some of these contents would be copyrighted content and some are not. Some more examples of P2P file sharing would be videotaping in a movie theater and sharing the content to your friends or copying expensive software by using BitTorrent. There are many ethical issues and controversies regarding P2P file sharing. Some people may consider this the stealing of intellectual property off creators because their creation may be patented or music may be copyrighted. According to google, 28 million users share files through P2P file sharing everyday where contents may be copyrighted.