Real World Example: Controlled Access

• Users are given the opportunity to specify who can directly access their files, and which specific files, which allows users to have more control over their own resources

• An option of designating groups allows users to set up secure areas for classes, institutions, departments, etc. that can share information amongst themselves

Real World Example: A professor at a university would like to use copyrighted video clips during his class since the footage is related to the course material. The professor would rather not use class time for the videos but use them for assigned viewing. He concludes that distributing digital video files of the shows is the best way to accomplish this but he is concerned about copyright issues.

Without LionShare: The professor faces numerous difficulties. The video clips are copyrighted so he cannot just place the video files in a publically assessible place such as a Web site. Further, the files are so large that they will not be accepted by most email servers. This leaves very few alternatives. Moreover, setting up these alternatives (such as a password protected website) requires more technological skill than this professor possesses.

With LionShare: LionShare would help the professor on many different levels. First, it contains the tools to organize his digital video collection. Second, a few clicks of the mouse will allow him to share the digital video with only his class. By limiting access to his students combined with the fact that these clips are part of curriculum materials, the professor would thereby avoid copyright problems since this usage would fall under the "fair use" exemption. Third, P2P is the perfect way to distribute very large files like these digital video files since with P2P's direct sharing there are no central bottlenecks. This is in contrast to the typical client/server scenario where large files can get "clogged" at busy servers. Additionally, the professor is limited only by the space on his hard drive rather than more limited web space quotas.

In short, it's faster than a Web site or internal network and puts distribution control into the hands of the people who want to share.