About a year or so ago I spent a little time using Kazaa to see what the phenomenon was. I was a late-comer to the party by any reasonable definition and I didn't stay long, because I found Kazaa irritating to use with its pop-up ads and tendency to fail to complete a download. But I got an appreciation of the peer-to-peer phenomenon, which was what interested me.

Technically, and in line with their public posturing, Kazaa doesn't steal music (or films or whatever) it just points you at files that can be copied publicly and organizes the download. (It's a directory really). It is not, in my opinion, good at what it does, but by any reasonable definition it constitutes a loosely connected grid and, as such, it stands as a model for what could be done.

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