Do the new legal Napster and iTunes use peer-to-peer technology? Or are they simply standard client-server downloads?
In other words, when you purchase and download a song, does the song come entirely from an iTunes/Napster server, or does it or parts of it come from other users?
Well, unless they are doing something really sneaky that noone knows about, I’d say they are traditional client/server downloads.
I’ve used itunes for purchasing a few songs, and every download was from “itunes.com/songname/etc”. Also, itunes has no such thing as a “shared” folder on my system, which would seem to be a requirement for a P2P setup. My firewall has never had itunes attempt to act as a server, either.
I’m sure someone with more knowledge will be along soon, but from my experience I’d have to say they are NOT P2P.
Nope. When you use [insert name of P2P app here], you’re getting the file from some random computer, trusting that the filename matches the actual song, trusting that the whole song is there, that’s the quality is fairly high. AFAIK, nobody P2P’s the non-mp3 formats that iTunes, etc. use, especially since they have security stuff built in, so they only work on one computer. Definitely not P2P at all.