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Cache content August
2003
Web cacheing could ease pressure of peer-to-peer burden
One of the success stories after the dotcom crash has
been the spread of peer-to-peer services, which have proliferated in ways
that the original inventors of the Internet could not have foreseen -
while also remaining true to the original concept of distributed, non-centralised
services.
File sharing systems, such as KaZaA and FastTrack have
come at a price, however, with many ISPs reporting a huge burden in terms
of bandwidth. While fixed rate subscriptions services mean that most users
in the EU no longer pay for each hour they download material, ISPs have
felt the pressure.
Joltid, a Swedish firm, has recently released a new product
called PeerCache, which it claims will ease the burden by allowing companies
to store commonly exchanged files and information in web caches - reducing
bandwidth in some cases by an estimated 50 per cent.
| The system
is not without its critics, however, notably those in entertainment
and intellectual property industries such as music. The International
Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has made threatening
noises, saying that cacheing does not remove copyright liability
- hardly surprising as file sharing has hit online music hardest.
Joltid - one of the co-founders of KaZaA - claims
that his software does not encourage illegal distribution: ultimately,
responsibility resides with users. |
Previous
stories
EU Copy Protection
Copy the Right Thing
Cracking Copyright
Relevant sites
Joltid
IFPI |
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