Addressing the Free-Rider Problem in File-Sharing Systems: A Mechanism-Design Approach
نویسندگان
چکیده
We consider popular file-sharing systems such as Kazaa from a game theoretic perspective. Such systems are inherently vulnerable to free-riding, that is, to users who download files but do not contribute in return. The result is that these systems do not maximize the number of files exchanged; in the parlance of mechanism design, these mechanisms do not implement the desired social choice function. In the spirit of mechanism design, we search for alternative, more efficient mechanisms. An interesting aspect of the mechanism-design problem is that, in this setting, mechanisms do not have the luxury of ruling out free-riding as an available strategy. More annoyingly, a mechanism cannot distinguish between a free-rider and a good citizen who happens to not have goods to contribute. We nonetheless manage to identify more efficient mechanisms, including one that is provably optimal within the constraints we define.
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