Napster, however was not a pure peer-to-peer protocol. "Napster actually used a central server, making it a kind of hybrid P2P with it's client-server design, but Gnutella is pure P2P" (P2P, its the way to be, p. 1). Napster, unlike the Gnutella protocal, actually connected to a direct server to route traffic of its users. Gnutella on the other hand, does not have a central server, making it virtually impossible to censor or shutdown. Gnutella, being a pure P2P, is decentralized, it does not have a central server to connect to. Users on Gnutella instead connect directly with other users and therefore have no need for a centralized server to faclitate communication and distribution.
Where is peer-to-peer today?.
In true technological evolutionary form, the p2p architecture has spawned new and efficent cousins. Soon after Napster's collapse, there became "napster clones," but these were even more bothersome to the entertainment police. These new protocals not only allowed mp3's to be shared freely, but they also supported a broad spectrum of file formats to downloaded freely. In a matter of months, millions of full length dvd movies, documents, and software were being shared on the various new p2p protocals. "The sharing of files containing pirating movies may still be in its infancy, but 300,000-500,000 feature films are already being downloaded daily" (Napster All Over Again? p. 1). The amount of downloaded dvd movies are only going to increase for there are several factors that are on the rise. First, the popularity of broadband connections, capable of downloading huge files much more quicklyare becoming more commonplace. Secondly, as new video compression technologies are being introduced, the size of full length movies are ever shrinking down the standard 6 gigabytes, down to a mere 600 megabits, with minimal quality loss. Lastly, the development of more efficent P2P protocals that support the sharing of video formats are on the rise.
