TOOLS TO SHARE FILES: P2P

Peer-to-Peer file sharing of computer files using a networking technology. P2P is a special kind of network type ('Network topology' is the fancy description). It describes computers that are networked to each other without a central server being in-between. It allowas users to acces media files such as books, musc, movies, and games using P2P.
The earliest one (Napster) to the latest one (BitTorrent protocol).
Several factor contributed to the widespread adoption of P2P file sharing:

• Increasing Internet bandwidth.
• The widespread digitization of physical media.
• The increasing capabilities of personal computers.  

Software has been developed that can even put together a file from bits of the file stored across several 'peers' on the network. For example Bit Torrent can do this. The advantage is that no single computer needs to be over-loaded when a very popular / very large file is requested.