The thing that worries me is the fact that I can see a day soon where the RIAA or one of the big labels will use the full legal resources at their disposal to locate one individual who's sharing files and make an example of them.

Once that has been done, then a president can be set to go after others.

As others have quite rightly pointed out, Gnutella's main strength is the sheer number of servants out there. However, just as Metallica did with Napster in identifying a whole list of offending users, expect the same to happen with Gnutella.

Let's face it, regardless of whether encryption is used or not, it is easy enough to identify a remote servant hosting illegal files, either by viewing the web page or by starting a download.

Once the IP address has been obtained, a quick visit to ARIN will reveal the owner/ISP of the IP. Since most ISP's have either within their T&C or AUP that you should not partake in trading of illegal items using their network, it wouldn't be too difficult to have the connection discontinued or, even worse, for subsequent legal action to take place if so desired.

Whilst files are shared in their entirety, regardless of the method used to transmit the files, I personally feel that the risk remains that the RIAA etc will soon set the cross-hairs on both the Gnutella clients and the users sharing the files.

Rachel