It's no secret that people use peer to peer software like BitTorrent or Lime Wire to download copyrighted movies, music, and software. But that doesn't mean there aren't legitimate uses for the technology. Next time you need to explain to your ISP that while you've been using massive amounts of bandwidth, you haven't actually been doing anything illegal, you might want to check out this wiki listing legal uses of P2P software.

The wiki shows a rather impressive list of legitimate P2P applications, ranging from VoIP client Skype to FAROO, a search engine built using peer to peer technology. Of course, there are also plenty of sites offering legal music and movie downloads, including Joost, Babelgum, Miro, and the BBC iPlayer. And plenty of filmmakers and musicians including Trent Reznor and have decided to release free copies of their works over BitTorrent.

Since this site is a wiki, anyone can login and edit the list. So if you're aware of individuals or groups that are using P2P software in innovative ways, you can add to the list.

[via Boing Boing]