Limewire

A peer to peer networking application began to boom nearly a decade ago with the beginning of Napster. What started as a way for peers to share .mp3, .mpeg, and .mpg files over the internet gained huge popularity, and became the norm for consumers looking for music. Another similar networking utility to Napster, Limewire, is very widespread in our population today. Limewire allows for a consumer to retrieve a file of nearly any song or video that they would like, and have it stored in their computer's memory where they can use the file whenever they'd like. As more peers search for the files, the transfers continue and there are more satisfied users on the network.

However, as the peer-to-peer transferring goes on, the ones who are really losing out in the deal are those artists that are actually releasing CD's and losing sales. I know personally, I have not bought a CD since using Limewire, as I can get any songs I want at any time. I know that many others carry this same mentality, and thus, it is a very difficult trend to break unless Limewire and other applications such as iMesh and Kazaa are eliminated completely. With the continuing adaptations done by the peer-to-peer networks, this would seem to prove very difficult to accomplish.