Peer to Peer Networking In Business - Research Paper Example

? Peer to Peer Networking in Business Technology is being applied in business to ease most of the processes and to maximize profits in the end, Peer to peer services allow users to network resources to several users at the same time. This ease with which data files are transferred also comes with it a number of consequences with should be addressed. The purpose of this research is to identify if people are comfortable with peer-to-peer networking as a way of conducting their business. Peer to Peer Networking in Business Chapter 1 Introduction Background Peer to peer networks have attracted a significant amount of attention in the press as popular network architecture and this brings the need for a clear understanding of this application. Peer to peer (P2P) technology has seen an increase in usage since 21st century with both beneficial and destructive practices depending on which end of technology one is at. Millions of people are routinely trading in this digital in search of audio files, video, software, music games, and movies thanks to P2P technology. The increase in demand of the users and businesses is initiating the need for exploring the ways in which this digital content can best satisfy human wants in business to achieve maximum profitability. It is clear that p2p systems can either create or destroy huge amounts of contents depending on various conditions of use during file sharing process thus should be monitored keenly. The technology is beneficial to business development and application due to good profit returns and the ease associated with it use. P2P file sharing is important application in the conventional world following office application and business ethics in terms of benefits for business ideas and business ethics in terms of infringement of other people’s rights. P2P file sharing works in different ways based on employment protocol such as file querying from server based services to respond on the presence or existence of a file. In addition, this technology makes collaboration possible in business because files can be easily transferred from one person to another with a lot of ease and convenience. This results into reduced cost of business sharing and increased efficiency of staff as many workers can work on the same question simultaneously without changing traffic protocols. Moreover, this technology can also be used in business to lower the cost of computing power following its capacity to enable parallel processing of information. Since this is a new technology in business, it has its pros and cons considering the nature of its application that is unique to business. Legally, the issue of copyright infringement has been the debate concerning P2P, application that is viewed by some law enforcers to be copyright infringement. Statement of the problem A number of businesses are in the verge of boosting their sales and efficiency of their business models to achieve good profits and this call for technology application. This has prompted some business owners to apply the best and latest techniques in business application, which includes P2P networking in business to enable them, compete profitable with other firms. The increased application of P2P technology has seen many business firms on the wrong side of the law and thus the aim of research is to establish whether businesses are comfortable with P2P technology. Purpose of the study The legal and ethical issues, which arises from the continuous use of P2P technology needs a careful study aimed in justifying the application and the use of this new technology in business networking. The business people need to get approval from research if the benefit of P2P application outweighs loses so that they can continue with its application. Hypothesis The review of related literature shows that there is less need collaboration between the business owners, copyright owners and the legal fraternity. The collaboration should be aimed at enabling business owners to make profits using P2P in such a way that they do not infringe the copyright laws and thus face legal action. Chapter 2 Literature review Economic issues It is established that P2P share some economic characteristics that are similar to public goods therefore it has an impact on the demand and supply thus affecting traded directly. There are notable similarities in which resources are shared in P2P networks are availed for sale and use by businesses in their effort to simplify trade. Some of these similarities are hard to understand hence require some technical knowledge while others can easily be understood by most people in the business sector (Tamilmani, Pai and Mohr, 2004). This has led to some idea that P2P goods are non-excludable in supply since they are made available on the network hence non-rival in demand, which is not often the case. The use of p2p enable businesses to save a lot of time which can be used in other business transactions due to simplicity of the process. 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 (Lang and Vragov, 2005). Commercially, P2P can be used for distribution of premium content to consumers, such as games, movies, music and software among others (Light, 2001). Therefore, 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. Concerning 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 (Cunningham, Alexander and Adilov, 2004). 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 (Koskela et al, 2013). 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. Therefore, 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 (Schmidt, 2006). 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 (Asvanund et al, 2004). 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. 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 owner authorizes the content transmitted, 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, under either 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). Chapter 4 Methodology Research Design Qualitative research design was used to search for valuable information that was able to explain the various P2P processes together with user centered innovations. Qualitative research design focused on the recommendations of the businesspersons who apply the use of P2P networking in their transactions. Data collection will be exclusively through online survey that will be sent to businesspersons and will be collected and analyzed through a computer system. The principals will receive email information about two weeks before the study describing the study itself explaining the distribution of the survey website detailing the importance of the findings. A contact phone number will be listed for potential questions regarding survey and detailed information if the results of the study are wanted. Following this information email, about two weeks later an email cover letter encompassing the website survey address will be sent to these principals. They will be asked to forward the survey link to all business main men who are known to apply P2P in their business models. These businesspersons will be asked to complete the survey within four weeks and submit back their response for analysis of data. Data Collection Methods and Procedures Data to be used in this study was obtained from the email website; however, primary data was obtained from the field. A questionnaire was used to collect the primary data, Internet sources acted as the secondary data source; therefore, each question will be answered and the data will be sent directly for collection in the website. Data Analysis and Presentation The data obtained from the survey will be used in the analysis and presentation of data; the three sets were data reduction, conclusion drawing and verification, and data display. Data reduction included focusing, sorting, and organization of data for easy deductions of conclusions. Displaying of data followed data reduction, it was done with an aim of drawing conclusions; finally, the data was presented in pie charts and graphs. Chapter 4 Findings Out of the two hundred respondents, 110 were male, while the rest were female; the number of the male was more than the female. This showed that many clients who enjoyed peer-to-peer networking are male. Age One fifty respondents out of the two hundred respondents were in the range of 20-30 years, forty of the respondents were in the range of 30-40, only one respondent was in the range of 40-50 years, fifty + age bracket had no respondent. Education The level of education of 120 respondents out of 200 was post-secondary education; the remaining 80 respondents were of high school level and below. Training Fifty respondents out of the two hundred respondents have training hence know the usage of P2P technologies, while the remaining 150 respondents had no training in P2P technologies. Chapter 5 Summary From the results, it is evidence that most of the P2P users are male; however, their number is almost the same. Since the use of this technology depends on the number of internet users, the internet usage results therefore favors this business. Majority of these users are youths, this is evidenced in the user age bracket because many of them fall between 20-30 age brackets. Many of the adults are not users of the internet hence most of them are not involved in P2P technologies; this can be deduced from the zero users from the age bracket of 50+ years. Therefore, we can conclude that majority of people want the use of P2P technologies to continue due to its various benefits. In addition, we therefore recommend that further studies should be should be done aimed at establishing ways in which copyright owners can benefit from the use of P2P technologies. References Asvanund, A. Clay, K,. Krishnan, R. M. Smith. (2004) An empirical analysis of network externalities in peer-to-peer music-sharing networks, Information Systems Research 15 (2)155–174. 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 Cunningham, B. Alexander, P., Adilov, N. (2004) Peer-to-peer file sharing communities, Information Economics and Policy 16.197–213. 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. Koskela, T., Kassinen, O., Harjula, E., & Ylianttila, M. (2013). P2P Group Management Systems: A Conceptual Analysis. ACM Computing Surveys, 45(2), 20-20:25. Lang, K, Vragov, R. (2005). Using experimental methods to evaluate the effectiveness of different pricing mechanisms for content distribution over peer-to-peer networks. (Working paper). Light, D. (2001). Harnessing the Power of Idle Computers. Harvard Business Review, 79(3), 22-23. Schmidt, A. (2006).Multi-level markets and incentives for information goods, Information Economics and Policy 18. 125–138. Taddeo, M., & Vaccaro, A. (2011). Analyzing Peer-to-Peer Technology Using Information Ethics.Information Society, 27(2), 105-112. Tamilmani, K., V. Pai, and A. Mohr. 2004. SWIFT: A System with Incentives For Trading. Second Workshop on Economics of Peer to Peer Network. Working Paper, Stony Brook University. Vannoy, S. A., & Palvia, P. (2010). The Social Influence Model of Technology Adoption.Communications Of The ACM, 53(6), 149-153. Appendix Questionnaire Age……… Gender……….. Level of education……….. Do you know about peer to peer networking? If yes, have you applied it in business? How long have you been using this technology? Was it helpful to you when you applied it in business? What difficulty did you encounter in the use of P2P networking? Should P2P users pay copyright owners? Read More