Google gets into p2p file sharing
p2pnet.net News:- Google appears to have to given a virtual nod to online p2p file sharing, planning to sort out any ensuing difficulties later.
It recently bought into Xunlei.com, a Chinese Web site that allows users to download music and videos. However, Xunlei allows users to do a lot more than that. It’s a, “Chinese P2P filesharing program,” states protocolinfo.org unequivocally.
It has hundreds of millions of users but nonetheless hadn’t yet caught the eye of the entertainment cartels, and with ‘video’ as the operative word, Google, “swooped in and dangled a large wad of cash before Xunlei just as the company tries to go legit, ” says Ars Technica.
The investment shows Google, “wants a large piece of another such business in China, one just beginning to craft a legal business model” and, “When seen in conjunction with Google Video and YouTube, it’s clear that the company has big worldwide plans for distributing video clips online,” says the story
On Slyck, “The impetus behind the client is to facilitate multi-source downloads to gain maximum download speeds within the underdeveloped Internet infrastructure currently in place in China. The current infrastructure closely resembles North America’s dial-up heavy populous a decade ago – including the advertising model of pop ups and animated graphics, but with modern-day tools.
“In short, Xulei, sponsored by Google, is acting much like a typical file sharing network; they are facilitating the aggregating and locating of material via their Thunderbolt application, then creating and releasing free of charge the application with which to download copyrighted content and acting as a tracker for others with the same file including the unauthorized use of web caches containing the file. Xunlei is much more than just a streaming video company – that is certain.”
How does Xunlei work?
It’s based on P2SP, wrote Ranus Yue of Tsinghua University in late December last year, going on:
“That means a user download from other users and multiple servers simultaneously. However, due to bandwidth restraints and online time, most downloads are provided by public file servers (through either http or ftp). In this way, a user can occupy resources of many servers, while only access one webpage (the original download page it visits). Therefore, most servers providing downloads receive nothing for these resources, because users do not click their links or view their ads.
“What’s more, Xunlei has opened its own search engine and webpages so that it can provide downloads without really hosting anything but metadata.
“Recently, downloading sites who actually host files are proposing countermeasures against Xunlei. One particularly simple solution is to repack a file which leads to change of file hash.”
Stay tuned.
Also See:
bought into – Google’s China download deal, January 5, 2007
Ars Technica – Google thunders into Chinese P2P video market, December 28, 2006
Slyck – Google Takes a Pro File Sharing Stance, January 11, 2007
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January 15th, 2007 at 9:17 am
This appears to be some sort of eDonkey and BitTorrent combination. But, judging from China’s relatively poor enforcement of copyrights upon their country, this program/network might potentially boost Chinese file sharing and unauthorized distribution in general within China with little consequence. Whether or not the copyright groups will be able to effectively take action is unknown from a legal standpoint, but is very possible from a technical one, considering the centralized nature of the network. Although I seriously doubt the network would be used outside Asia when much more decentralized (and English) networks and clients exist elsewhere.