The exchange of files and software has become one of the most common online activities. Every day, people are uploading and downloading more and more songs, videos, photos, software applications and other files. It can be done quickly, easily and automatically by using Peer to Peer (P2P) programs, such as Ares and BitTorrent.
Although many users exchange information online, we must be careful about the files and software that we download, use on our computers or redistribute to other people. There are legal restrictions that apply to many types of digital content. For example, some types of software are open source, which means the source code is available to the public and can be modified by users. Other types of software are closed source, which means the source code can only be modified by the progammer.