Over at Sphere of Networks, I published a text that tries to give a simple overview of the workings of information production in the age of the internet, covering everything from free software to free culture.

Sharing: Culture and the Economy in the Internet Age offers a counterpoint to the dominant view that file sharing is piracy, analyzing it rather as the modern form of long recognized rights to share in culture.
Go ahead. Take a copy

You can find Linux clients for several file-sharing networks. Taking into account how many clients are available for each, the current top three peer-to-peer (P2P) networks are eDonkey2000, FastTrack (derived from Kazaa), and Gnutella. Here are some desktop applications that allow you to become a full-fledged file sharer.

"...We'll conclude the program with another presentation from the 4 annual oekonux conference, Free Software and Beyond The World of Peer Production held in Manchester, England last month that brought together an international group of people from the free software movement that are exploring the application of peer to peer networks and free collaboration beyond software to society as a whole."

"The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced its orders on Comcast, a major high-speed internet provider, to halt their practice of throttling selected peer-to-peer file sharing traffic.

"A new directive in France could see peer-to-peer users cut off if they continue to share files. A memorandum of understanding has been signed by some French ISPs, the recording industry and the French government under which ISPs will hand over data on who is using file sharing networks to a new government agency..."

"...In this article, Michel Bauwens discusses an emerging human social dynamic called: peer to peer (P2P).

"It is finally done… after much delay and a couple of suggestions and corrections by iSummit participants, I managed to publish online a report from Free Culture 2008, the research workshop I helped organize during the iSummit in Sapporo, on the themes of sharing, online freedom and collaboration, commons-based peer production and Creative Commons licensing..."

"In 'The Wealth of Networks,' published in 2006 Yale University Press, Harvard Professor Yochai Benkler describes a new model of economic production that he calls the networked information economy [...] Benkler’s arguments find their roots in the free software movement and the hacker ethic.