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Type of site | Technology news, software, forums and download links |
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Available in | English |
Owner | Jorge A. Gonzalez, Chris Hedgecock |
Created by | Jorge A. Gonzalez, Chris Hedgecock |
URL | www |
Registration | Optional (to post on forum) |
Launched | March 2000 [1] |
Current status | Defunct [2] |
ZeroPaid.com was [2] a website concerning news, computer software, community, and file sharing. It offered news, software reviews, links, and a user forum. Its main news staff consisted of Jared Moya since 2005 and Drew Wilson since 2007.
ZeroPaid launched in by Jorge Gonzalez and Chris Hedgecock. [3] ZeroPaid's early focus was on the peer-to-peer space including file sharing, Napster, Gnutella, Usenet, and BitTorrent. [4]
Early popularity can be attributed to features like the Gnutella "server of the moment", which allowed users to connect to a node of the decentralized network. This feature has since been built into desktop clients. [5]
ZeroPaid gained notoriety in 2000 for its "Wall of Shame" [6] listing of IP addresses of users who allegedly attempted to download child pornography from the Gnutella P2P network. [7] The site continues to be a source of original content and analysis. The website features interviews, including those with WinMXWorld, [8] FilesTube, [9] the Open Rights Group, [10] the Pirate Party of Canada, [11] the Free Software Foundation, [12] Renaud Veeckman, [13] Russell McOrmond [14] and Michael Geist. [15]
ZeroPaid developed into a news and technology website featuring daily news on tech and copyright, a free software catalog, and user forums. The website has been mentioned and its founders quoted in The Economist, [16] E! News, [17] [18] USA Today, [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] and Wired. [24] [25] [26]
As of 2018, the website appears defunct. [2]
BearShare was a peer-to-peer-file-sharing-application originally created by Free Peers, Inc. for Microsoft Windows and also a rebranded version of iMesh by MusicLab, LLC, tightly integrated with their music subscription service.
Gnutella is a peer-to-peer network protocol. Founded in 2000, it was the first decentralized peer-to-peer network of its kind, leading to other, later networks adopting the model.
Kazaa Media Desktop. was a peer-to-peer file sharing application using the FastTrack protocol licensed by Joltid Ltd. and operated as Kazaa by Sharman Networks. Kazaa was subsequently under license as a legal music subscription service by Atrinsic, Inc., which lasted until August 2012.
LimeWire was a free peer-to-peer file sharing client for Windows, macOS, Linux and Solaris. Created by Mark Gorton in 2000, it was most prominently a tool used for the download and distribution of pirated materials, particularly pirated music. In 2007, LimeWire was estimated to be installed on over one-third of all computers globally.
Napster was a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing application primarily associated with digital audio file distribution. Founded by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, the platform originally launched on June 1, 1999. Audio shared on the service was typically encoded in the MP3 format. As the software became popular, the company encountered legal difficulties over copyright infringement. Napster ceased operations in 2001 after losing multiple lawsuits and filed for bankruptcy in June 2002.
Justin Frankel is an American computer programmer best known for his work on the Winamp media player application and for inventing the Gnutella peer-to-peer network. Frankel is also the founder of Cockos Incorporated, which creates music production and development software such as the REAPER digital audio workstation, the NINJAM collaborative music tool and the Jesusonic expandable effects processor.
eDonkey2000 was a peer-to-peer file sharing application developed by US company MetaMachine, using the Multisource File Transfer Protocol. It supported both the eDonkey2000 network and the Overnet network.
giFT Internet File Transfer (giFT) is a computer software daemon that allows several file sharing protocols to be used with a simple client having a graphical user interface (GUI). The client dynamically loads plugins implementing the protocols, as they are required.
Earth Station 5 (ES5) was a peer-to-peer network active between 2003 and 2005, operated by a company of the same name. The user client application also shared this name. Earth Station 5 was notable for its strong, if overstated, emphasis on user anonymity, and for its bold advocacy of piracy and copyright infringement. ES5's highly antagonistic position toward copyright advocacy and enforcement organizations garnered the group significant attention and peaked with an ES5 press release announcing a "declaration of war" against the Motion Picture Association of America. ES5 claimed to operate out of the Jenin in the Palestinian Authority-controlled West Bank, a region where they argued that copyright laws were unenforceable. Investigative journalism cast serious doubts on the company's Palestinian origin as well as many of its other claims. To this day, much about the company and its leadership remains uncertain or unknown.
MediaDefender, Inc. was a company that fought copyright infringement that offered services designed to prevent alleged copyright infringement using peer-to-peer distribution. They used unusual tactics such as flooding peer-to-peer networks with decoy files that tie up users' computers and bandwidth. MediaDefender was based in Los Angeles, California in the United States. As of March 2007, the company had approximately 60 employees and used 2,000 servers hosted in California with contracts for 9 Gbit/s of bandwidth.
Hotline Communications Limited (HCL) was a software company founded in 1997, based in Toronto, Canada, with employees also in the United States and Australia. Hotline Communications' main activity was the publishing and distribution of a multi-purpose client/server communication software product named Hotline Connect, informally called, simply, Hotline. Initially, Hotline Communications sought a wide audience for its products, and organizations as diverse as Avid Technology, Apple Computer Australia, and public high schools used Hotline. At its peak, Hotline received millions of dollars in venture capital funding, grew to employ more than fifty people, served millions of users, and won accolades at trade shows and in newspapers and computer magazines around the world.
Slyck was a website that produced and aggregated file sharing news stories, as well as offering a forum for users.
This is a timeline of events in the history of networked file sharing.
FrostWire is a free and open-source BitTorrent client first released in September 2004, as a fork of LimeWire. It was initially very similar to LimeWire in appearance and functionality, but over time developers added more features, including support for the BitTorrent protocol. In version 5, support for the Gnutella network was dropped entirely, and FrostWire became a BitTorrent-only client.
File sharing is a method of distributing electronically stored information such as computer programs and digital media. Below is a list of file sharing applications, most of them make use of peer-to-peer file sharing technologies.
Peer-to-peer file sharing is the distribution and sharing of digital media using peer-to-peer (P2P) networking technology. P2P file sharing allows users to access media files such as books, music, movies, and games using a P2P software program that searches for other connected computers on a P2P network to locate the desired content. The nodes (peers) of such networks are end-user computers and distribution servers.
File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia, documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include removable media, centralized servers on computer networks, Internet-based hyperlinked documents, and the use of distributed peer-to-peer networking.
WireShare is a revival of the LimeWire software, a gnutella p2p-network client. The original LimeWire Pirate Edition was adapted from LimeWire Basic edition to provide similar features to LimeWire Pro with no adware or backdoor control. The Ask toolbar integration was removed, along with dependencies on LimeWire servers and remote settings. The software supports Windows, Linux, and Mac, and its source code is available on GitHub.
Metallica, et al. v. Napster, Inc. was a 2000 U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California case that focused on copyright infringement, racketeering, and unlawful use of digital audio interface devices. Metallica vs. Napster, Inc. was the first case that involved an artist suing a peer-to-peer file sharing ("P2P") software company.
File sharing in Japan is notable for both its size and sophistication.