P2P File Sharing

P2P is the answer to traditional file downloading – a one-to-one data transfer which can be incredibly tedious. Upload speeds are always a fraction of download speeds, but with P2P, everyone who has the file can share it, instead of one central server distributing it (which would create a chokepoint). P2P relies on a swarm of users, and it is immensely popular for the sharing of digital media files such as video (.mkv and .mp4 files), audio (.mp3 and .flac), ebooks (.epub and .azw3), and even games/applications (.iso mirror and .apk). It is fairly simple process, but it requires some beginner/intermediate-level technical savvy. The most common form of P2P is the BitTorrent protocol, which can be run through a program on any phone or computer. Although there are many programs that make use of the BitTorrent protocol, the most common one is uTorrent on Windows, and Transmission on Mac.

BitTorrent is in fact a response to the unsustainable business model for new media. The lowered cost of entry for releasing an album or book has led to an explosion of releases, plus older works that are now searchable, make it impossible to buy every single piece of media one is interested in sampling. Although Netflix and Spotify’s fixed-price model has provided a profitable legal avenue for consuming media, it isn’t an all-purpose service. Through BitTorrent, virtually any file can be shared, and the sharing of copyrighted material has been proliferated.

In an article in Wired magazine in January 2005, BitTorrent protocol founder Bram Cohen shared how the structure of the protocol enables large files to be shared quickly by splicing one file into many smaller ones:

Cohen realized that chopping up a file and handing out the pieces to several uploaders would really speed things up. He sketched out a protocol: To download that copy of Meet the Fokkers, a user’s computer sniffs around for others online who have pieces of the movie. Then it downloads a chunk from several of them simultaneously. Many hands make light work, so the file arrives dozens of times faster than normal.

Thus, the more people sharing, the quicker the speed. Even when a file hasn’t been completely downloaded, one can still share individual chunks. The service has little competition, and had nearly 70 million users a decade ago. Currently, over 56% of file-sharing traffic on the web is through BitTorrent, and approximately 250 million people use some form of BitTorrent for sharing files between peers.

Works Cited

1. The BitTorrent Effect by Clive Thompson, Wired, January 2005. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/bittorrent.html