A
Napster-like add-on to
AOL's
AIM Instant Messaging system, which uses
the
Gnutella protocol to enable users to swap
MP3s. The Gnutella system is
a genuine
distributed file protocol which means it is far harder to shut
down than Napster's
centralised database, but the Aimster authors are
hoping to avoid that issue anyway by limiting the number of others with whom
users are able to
share files. However in this case it could be AOL who get
heavy with
lawyers, as they have proved themselves in the past to be very
proprietary over the AIM
protocol.
This was a nodeshell, now it's a writeup.