P2P for TV and movie buffs

Now I have forsaken my once evil ways and no longer illegally download music off of the internet. Instead I go to the iTunes Music Store to legally get the songs, or albums, I need.

However; there is a different sort of online sharing that is gaining in popularity. People aren't sharing little music files, but instead huge video files. All your favorite tv shows and movies, or any big file. These files are so large that a traditional Peer to Peer network would take days to download them. Now there is a way to do it in minutes. BitTorrent.

Here is a great article all about it. It is a bit long, so I'll go ahead and copy in the basic idea of BitTorrent.

1. A single source file within a group of BitTorrent users, called a swarm, spreads around pieces of a film or videogame or TV show so that everyone has a chunk to share.

2. After the initial downloading, those pieces are then uploaded to other needy users in the swarm. The rules require every downloader to also do some uploading. Thus the more people trying to download, the faster everything is uploaded.

3. Before long, the swarm has shared all the pieces, and everyone has their own complete source.

So for those people with a broadband connection and a desire to see their favorite shows or movies whenever they want, go try it out.