Bandwidth could become a form of "currency" with users paying for downloaded files by uploading more data themselves, researchers say.

The goal is to ensure that future content, particularly video, is distributed as fairly and efficiently as possible.

Computer scientists have have used the idea to develop peer-to-peer file-sharing software, which they are asking computer users to try out. They hope eventually to create a "global marketplace in bandwidth", where people can trade it as a commodity.

The researchers' free software, called Tribler, uses a modified version of the popular BitTorrent file-trading algorithm.

P2P is a legitimate model for data transfer. It wasn't so long ago that it had a bad connotation. However now, more and more companies are embracing it all the time. Ala system.net.peertopeer.