ZeroPaid.com was a website concerning

news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the tes ...

computer software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

, and

file sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include r ...

. It offered news, software reviews, links, and a user forum. Its main news staff consisted of Jared Moya since 2005 and Drew Wilson since 2007.

History

ZeroPaid launched in by Jorge Gonzalez and Chris Hedgecock. ZeroPaid's early focus was on the

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer n ...

space including

Napster Napster was a peer-to-peer file sharing application. It originally launched on June 1, 1999, with an emphasis on digital audio file distribution. Audio songs shared on the service were typically encoded in the MP3 format. It was founded by Shawn ...

Gnutella Gnutella is a peer-to-peer network protocol. Founded in 2000, it was the first decentralized peer-to-peer network of its kind, leading to other, later networks adopting the model. In June 2005, Gnutella's population was 1.81 million computer ...

Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...

, and BitTorrent. Early popularity can be attributed to features like the

"server of the moment", which allowed users to connect to a node of the decentralized network. This feature has since been built into desktop clients. ZeroPaid gained notoriety in 2000 for its "Wall of Shame" listing of IP addresses of users who allegedly attempted to download child pornography from the Gnutella P2P network. The site continues to be a source of original content and analysis. The website features interviews, including those with WinMXWorld, FilesTube, the Open Rights Group, the Pirate Party of Canada, the Free Software Foundation, Renaud Veeckman, Russell McOrmond and Michael Geist. ZeroPaid developed into a news and technology website featuring daily news on tech and copyright, a free software catalog, and user forums. The website has been mentioned and its founders quoted in

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...

E! News ''E! News'', previously known as ''E! News Daily'' and ''E! News Live'', is the entertainment news operation for the cable network E! in the United States. Its former on-air weekday newscast debuted on September 1, 1991, and primarily reports ...

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...

, and

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...

."Apple TV Fails to Tap the Net's Limitless Library"
.

wired.com ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fran ...

, Oct 17, 2007. As of 2018, the website appears defunct.

References

External links

* {{official website
Tech News Website

American technology news websites BitTorrent File sharing communities Internet properties established in 2000 File sharing news sites