College students: The rationale for peer-to-peer video file sharing

Abstract

Peer-to-Peer networking is not a new concept within the academic world. Universities have been utilizing the Peer-to-Peer architecture for decades. Before the advent of the world-wide-web in the 1990s, the original ARPANET connected UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, UC Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah and allowed direct information sharing between researchers.1 Programs such as Bitnet allowed electronic communications between academics worldwide much earlier than e-mail and Instant Messenger. College campuses have also provided a robust breeding ground for content file sharing. Napster, one of the most popular Peer-to-Peer programs used to share music files was developed by Shawn Fanning while a freshman at Northeastern University and was introduced in May 1999. By end of that year, Napster's membership had risen to millions - thanks to word of mouth advertisement at colleges and universities worldwide. © 2008 Springer-Verlag New York.