Patent ID: 8838811

Claim:
A method of facilitating sharing of information among devices in a network, the method comprising: maintaining, by a local tracker node, collaboration information related to a list of files, the collaboration information including, for each respective file in the list of files: a first list of local peers actively participating in a local torrent; and a second list identifying a plurality of dormant peers associated with the respective file, each of which has participated in the past in the local torrent, does not currently participate in the local torrent, and is currently participating in a second torrent; sending, to a selected dormant peer selected from the second list, a request for a file that is unavailable from local peers actively participating in the local torrent; and providing, to a particular local peer, information needed for the particular local peer to obtain the file directly from the selected dormant peer when the selected dormant peer denies the request for the file, wherein an additional file is offered by the particular local peer to the selected dormant peer when the selected dormant peer denies the request for the file.