What P2P networks have done for distribution of digital media is phenomenal. It is possible, easy even, to get almost any TV show, movie, track or album you can think of by searching one of the many torrent sites. As fast as the media industry take down one site through legal action another has appeared to take its place.
I don't want to discuss the legal, moral or social implications of this, but discuss how the internet changes the nature of our relationship with media - and data. The internet is a great big copying machine, true enough, but it's also a fabric that allows mass co-operation. It's that mass peer-to-peer co-operation that makes so much content available for free; content that is published freely by its creator as well as infringing content.