How is it done?
History of P2P
 

History of MP3 web sites and browser servers

There are a number of sites such as the 'three' described on this page, that allow music to be downloaded from the net.. Although there is a never-ending argument over the legality of it, you can find almost any track that you can think of from these sites.Even if you can't remember the name of the track and the artist, the chances are that you could find it using the 'Hot list' capability by browsing through other user's collection of people with similar taste of music.

Word of Warning:

There are a lot of 'Adult material' on this server browser. If you are just after Music, you need to select 'Advanced' on the 'Search' screen and select 'Music, At least, 128kbps'. This would ensure that your search would return only CD quality MP3s and nothing else.

If you want to down load an executable file (.exe) i.e. games etc. make sure that you virus scan the file before opening it.

Kazaa Media Desktop was the number 1 peer-to-peer application which allows people around the world to share files. Kazaa uses peer-to-peer technology. This means that individual users connect to each other directly, without need for a central point of management.

The Kazaa Media Desktop is a great way for you to promote your own content. Any music, videos, images, documents or software that you have created and own, can be placed in your 'My Shared Folder' to be downloaded by others. The most valuable contribution you can make to peer-to-peer is to provide original content for others to enjoy. You can also collect works in the public domain, open source software or other publicly shared works, and become a resource for others.

For a vast number of countries (including US and UK), the liability issues has made this facility redundant.

WinMx is a FREE file-sharing program like no other. It allows you to connect, download, and share files with MILLIONS of other users through the decentralized WinMX Peer Network. Once WinMX is installed, you'll have access to one of the largest and most diverse networks of shared media files in the world. And unlike many other 'peer to peer' software providers, we respect your privacy and will never sell you out to spyware. When you download WinMX, you're getting WinMX and only WinMX, no bundled spyware, no ads, no B.S.

For a vast number of countries in the world, the liability issues has made this facility redundant.

History of Napster: Napster started in May 1999. They invented a 'Client browser' which is an easy way for individuals to share the songs on their hard disks to share songs without having to know anything about file servers or being connected to the server all the time.

Napster does not keep any of the songs on their server, instead Napster catalogues all the songs available on the selected part of the hard drive and the users can search the server and then download directly from the individuals.

The record companies sued Napster in attempt to shut it down, but instead they opened a debate world wide and Napster got famous. The price that they had to pay was to ensure that their server does not store the name of the copyrighted tracks.

This is not technically feasible because by blocking a track title that was released recently they are also blocking the same name track that was in public domain. Currently is is getting even worse as they are ordered to block part of the track name so that if there is a new track with the word 'yellow' in it, you cannot search for any tracks, copyrighted or not, with word 'yellow' in the title or the artists name.

Napster is a paid service and it is necessary to maintain a Napster subscription in order to access to songs downloaded through the Napster service.