Peer to Peer Networking In Business - Research Paper Example

? Peer to Peer Networking In Business Peer to peer technology has seen an increase in usage since the beginning of the 21st century, and with this has come diverse application. This is because the technology can be used for both beneficial and destructive practices depending on which end of the technology one is at, as well as ethical and legal implications. The technology is beneficial in business development and application following economic returns, and its downsides are not any better. Business ethics and legal action indicates implications that are equivalent to theft due to infringement of copyright laws and theft of intellectual property. The above brings about the demerits of running p2p technologies in the world of business for both offices and file-sharing. Peer to peer file sharing is also known as P2P file sharing, and has an important role in its application to the conventional world. This is following office application and business ethics in terms of infringing on people’s rights, as well as benefits for business ideas. Application of p2p technology in business based on the above terms is explored based on how it runs and with its consequences in business and ethics. Working P2P file sharing works in different ways based on the employment of the protocol, such as file querying from server based services to respond on the presence or existence of a file. With this use, the response prompts the owner of the given file to provide the file to the peer who needs it. In fast track protocol, files are based on nodes on a two-tier basis: super nodes and ordinary nodes. Individual computers form nodes, while super nodes are the act as directories for the centralized servers as used above. With p2p software, ordinary nodes connect to super nodes, which query the directory and respond with a list of matches for the user to create a direct peer-to-peer connection (Koskela et al, 2013). This is aimed at fetching the desired file directly from the selected peer. The bitTorrent program is the last protocol of p2p file sharing and is based on a simple concept of sharing. In this program, files are not shared, but rather bits of files are broken down to bits and distributed by different peers at equal sizes to different peers. A single copy of the file piece is distributed to different peers and then the peers with the different pieces provide them to one another. The peer with the original, complete file is known as a seed. Business Applications Peer-to-peer file sharing is highly beneficial to all users and other potential users based on the intent of use. In this regard, installation of bit Torrent clients is simple, as so is the configuration of all computers on the sharing network. With this in mind, time is saved for purposes that are more constructive rather than spending extended periods working on it. In addition, all resources required for file transfer are shared amongst peers making the file transfer process efficient. This is due to the elimination of servers that store content and are more susceptible to failure, which inconveniences users (Light, 2001). For this reason, p2p allows users to continue functionally without influencing other users thus; is more reliable as compared to server based sharing. In addition, it is relatively cheap as compared to other networks due to the few resources required and elimination of additional hardware. Maintenance and administration is barely required, making it an easily efficient system as each user manages his or her computer/ node thus controlling resource use at no additional cost of inconvenience. Commercially, p2p can be used for distribution of premium content to consumers, such as games, movies, music and software among others (Light, 2001). This facilitates easy trade in digital content, especially legally licensed content. It can also be used for more services such as video on demand and leasing of copyrighted content by artists and private or independent content producers. In regard to business, p2p sharing can be used for intra-business collaborative project management, where participants in project share documents and personal files with one another. Non-commercially, it can be used for academic purposes to publish research works between and amongst scholars as is seen in the Lion Share Project in the Pennsylvania State University (Vannoy and Palvia, 2010). In addition, persons or users who do not wish to charge for their content, such as musicians providing free, legal downloads or artists providing writing, art photography and other electronic content may use it. In addition, P2P technology can also be used in businesses that seek to lower their costs in computing power following the capability of P2P in enabling parallel processing. This is because; P2P applications tend to divide tasks into smaller components, which is more of tearing apart a task to its different components. Doing so allows the task to be divided among different peer nodes in the P2P network and exploit idle computer cycles, and this could even be used by companies that deal in large amounts of data and information such as data crunching for statistical analysis (Bishop et al, 2010). This even presents a business opportunity for companies that look into untapped ventures and alternative ways of making revenue, which is aside from renting a computing work force to other businesses. Having P2P in a business is highly applicable as it creates unprecedented innovation since it creates room for integrationist systems that allow the use of conventional computers and applications to use divided quota for processing power. Collaboration is also possible in a business when using this technology, where it allows real-time communication without the need for a central server to handle communication traffic. As a result, reduced funds are used in implementation and efficiency is increased as many members of staff can work on the same information simultaneously without having to change traffic protocols of leaving one’s terminal. This sharing is also secure for internal systems of information as they even allow one to work from home as with authorization access to work files is guaranteed. Legal and Ethical Issues Legal and ethical implications of peer-to-peer file sharing work hand in hand for the good and the bad of the society and all parties involved in the utilization of this protocol. Legally, the issue of copyright infringement is common in the use of p2p file sharing protocols. Copyrights allow owners of copyrighted works to receive their dues from consumers. Copyrighted works include works of art, literary compositions and music among others. Since copyright laws declare it illegal to reproduce and distribute, in any way, copyrighted materials, p2p file sharing leads to reproduction and distribution on a massive scale of such materials resulting in infringement (Taddeo and Vaccaro, 2011). Unless the content transmitted is authorized by the owner, end users or peers violate the law meaning that p2p leads to the increase of illegal sharing of information and content. The above occurs both commercially and non-commercially, in which case, commercial leads to loss of revenue for content owners. This issue is equivalent to theft, an offence punishable by the law, either under economic sabotage or criminal law. Infringement of copyrights falls on multiple categories such as contributory and vicarious thus its legal implications are numerous (Goel, Miesing and Chandra, 2010). Ethically, p2p implication arises over the use of the internet for communication via any manner without implications. This is due to the belief that the internet is a place with freedom and legal and moral issues are thrown to the wind. The utter disregard for the law in such cases is due to its potential to destroy the freedom created by the internet. As a result, those that attempt to curb the p2p technology are believed to be on the wrong side of technology due to violation of its potential benefits (Taddeo and Vaccaro, 2011). Conclusion In conclusion, applying these issues of P2P technology in business implies efficient means of sharing information and files across different offices and departments. This is all while keeping costs at a down low for businesses that do not wish to spend a lot of resources, but this comes with legal and ethical implications too. This is in that it infringes on copyrights and brings up legal issues from theft of information and economic sabotage. References Koskela, T., Kassinen, O., Harjula, E., & Ylianttila, M. (2013). P2P Group Management Systems: A Conceptual Analysis. ACM Computing Surveys, 45(2), 20-20:25. Vannoy, S. A., & Palvia, P. (2010). The Social Influence Model of Technology Adoption.Communications Of The ACM, 53(6), 149-153. Taddeo, M., & Vaccaro, A. (2011). Analyzing Peer-to-Peer Technology Using Information Ethics.Information Society, 27(2), 105-112. Goel, S., Miesing, P., & Chandra, U. (2010). The Impact of Illegal Peer-to-Peer File Sharing on the Media Industry. California Management Review, 52(3), 6-33. Light, D. (2001). Harnessing the Power of Idle Computers. Harvard Business Review, 79(3), 22-23. Bishop, D.J.; Hartman, A.R.; Kilper, D.C.; Korotky, S.K.; Suvakovic, D., (2010). "Energy efficient networking: Avoiding a future energy crunch," MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS CONFERENCE, 2010 - MILCOM 2010 , vol., no., pp.2047,2049. Read More