First, the Furthur Network and the application, "FurthurNet" is to be used only for the sharing of legal-live music from our approved band list. Any musician that allows the non-commercial taping and trading of their live performances are allowed on the Furthur Network. This would include bands like the Grateful Dead, Phish, String Cheese Incident, Widespread Panic, Phil Lesh and Friends, Dave Matthews Band and many other up and coming and other well known bands. No Commercial gain will be sought by this Network, either through advertising, offering digital files for download or by any other means. All participants in this digital exchange acknowledge and respect the copyrights of the performers, writers and publishers of the music.

    Second, The Furthur Network is a purely a volunteer project which utilizes open source code freely available at sourceforge.com. As long as "kind folks" continue to jump on the bus, the Furthur Network will never go away, because there are no significant costs involved with continuing.

   Third, the Furthur Network and the application, "FurthurNet" is not FTP or an FTP replacement. FTP speeds are just not possible with FurthurNet due to it's inherent design and resource usage. The speed in which you download at depends on a couple of different factors.

1. How much congestion on the internet and at your Internet Service Provider (ISP)
2. How fast the host(s) sharing the fileset can send data to you.
3. How fast you can receive data from the host(s). Download speeds may be capped.

    Forth, Using the FurthurNet Software to search and download music requires a different "mindset" than that of FTP. The FurthurNet Software allows you to Search for your Favorite Music, then Start a Download. You'll also never know what you'll find on the Network since many unknown/undiscovered bands share their music here. This makes for some great opportunities to hear new music, try new bands and download shows that you have forgotten about. Once you find your fancy, just "Set it and Forget it", the Furthurnet software will connect and auto-reconnect as hosts go online and off-line. So it is likely you will not completely receive your download in one session like FTP but downloads will always pickup where they left-off, as long as someone is sharing the same show.

   Fifth, The Media that is shared on the Furthur Network, is shared by other people like you and me. There are no central servers full of this great legal live music with "open access" 24/7/365. Therefore you cannot expect any download to seamlessly download without interruption. The Furthur Network is a peer-to-peer (aka: P2P) Network and costs of bandwidth may be prohibitive for some people and others just may not keep their computers on all the time. "Set it and Forget it" is a good motto to live by when using FurthurNet.  Since FurthurNet is peer-to-peer, one show/fileset can be hosted by many hosts and the system works better if many hosts continue to host the shows they download. The PCP code [or packet chain protocol] used in Furthur insures that once someone is downloading a show, MANY MANY others can ALSO download the same show by forming a chain of downloaders, thus significantly lowering bandwidth costs and at the same time making the show available to all, at the same time! The Furthur Network works best when you continue to share shows you download. Simply stated, "The more Hosts per Show, the Faster the downloads will go." But don't worry, FurthurNet automajikally moves "downloaded shows" into your shared list/tab, so they can be shared to others after you complete the download.

   All that being said, Let's summarize....

What the Furthur Network is:

• The Furthur Network is in a beta testing phase; it is not bug free.
• The Furthur Network is a Community that shares legal live music and video only.
• The Furthur Network is a Place to share MP3, SHN, & Other formats.
• The Furthur Network is a Growing community that likes to chat. (see etiquette.)
• The Furthur Network is Peer-to-Peer (person to person).
• The Furthur Network is free to access and the code is open source.

• The Furthur Network is not a place to share commercially released music. If this is your intent, you are not welcome and you will be banned when caught.
• The Furthur Network is not spyware.
• The Furthur Network is not a centralized Music Service.

           find out more: FurthurNet Features  |  History of Furthur Network  |  Download Now