the decentralised nature of p2p systems makes legal pursuit of gnutella difficult (if not impossable) but thats not to say that law enforcement authorities of one sort or another can't make life difficult and ISPs can work hand in hand to limit use of the network - here in Australia 'Telstra' has a monopoly on connections and their predatory charging policies make using p2p expensive - I'm forced to use a dialup service through a smaller provider because by doing that I can get unlimited time/unlimited downloads - if I convert to a cable connection with telstra I pay for every single data transfer (i.e. every single ping/pong is counted, costed and charged so that it just becomes unviable) - in terms of law enforcement threats, its not difficult to imagine the argument being advanced that p2p systems are deeply implicated in the distribution of child pornography and copyright offences and so ISPs should be required to monitor heavy gnutella users and disconnect them if they want to retain the rights to operate - if you then combine predatory pricing, ISP monitoring with legalised spoofing/spamming by RIAA etc you end up with a gnutella that will only serve a client base prepared to put in the time to work out how to circumvent the various impediments placed in the way of p2p - 'casual' users will be discouraged in droves and this might well be enough for those primarily interested in preserving the profit margins of 'old' business

Cheers, bad_vlad