I am listening to illegal music.

Or at least that’s what the Recording Industry Association of America would have you think if you download music.

I am on KaZaA as I write this article, along with 4.4 million other people worldwide, and we have nearly a billion different files to choose from. We are the new force in music. We are the biggest threat to intellectual property rights since the VCR. We are the end to a multi–billion dollar industry as they know it, and it feels good.

I, for one, am a huge fan of peer–to–peer music trading. I love it for the freedom it gives me by allowing me to find music literally on a whim. See Vanilla Ice on VH1 “Where Are They Now”? Download “Ice, Ice Baby” in about thirty seconds. Can’t get “Eye of the Tiger” out of your head? Download it, listen to it at max volume and exorcise those ’80s rock demons. It also allows me access to new music I might not have looked into before.

This freedom, this equality, this pure access has the music industry in fits. Here’s why (and why you should ignore them).

1. The music industry is losing money.

The music industry blames a 10 percent decrease in profits over the last two years on sharing music. This is erroneous on its face. First of all, music companies have raised the price of CDs over 12 percent in the last eight years, far outpacing inflation. Second of all, music companies have actually had a decrease in the number of releases they’ve made, meaning they’re putting out fewer products. Higher prices, fewer products and a crappy economy means less demand. In a depressed market, they aren’t doing that bad. The actual amount of downloading far exceeds the total number of sales. So a 10 percent drop in profits is not explained by file sharing.

The fact is the RIAA don’t know how much money they lose due to file sharing. What they don’t want to admit is that file sharers actually buy as much, if not more, music than their less net–savvy counterparts.

2. The artist loses money.

I admit this is a tough one. I support artists in every form. It’s why I buy books, go to movies, visit museums — you name it. I appreciate the fact that instead of buying the new album from Eminem, I have the three tracks on The Eminem Show I really like, instead of having dropped $13.99 for the whole album.

However, I also have a number of songs from Hot Hot Heat, The Dismemberment Plan, And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, and Boards of Canada. In the case of all of these bands, I purchased their CDs based on the strength of the music I downloaded off the Internet. As a result, they received my disposable income (as disposable as my student loan checks get). If I hadn’t been able to access them for free at first, I wouldn’t have paid to own them later.

It is a strong argument, however, that I won’t support artists like Eminem or Metallica (who loathe file sharing) with my money if the one hit they have I refuse to pay for. It is also true that I know people who exclusively get music off the Internet and never intend to pay for it if they don’t have to.

To these issues I say, “c’est la vie.” I support artists, not music corporations. Immensely successful artists like Metallica don’t need my money. They got it in 1991 when my sister purchased Metallica for me for Christmas (I still get goosebumps when I hear the opening for “Enter Sandman”).

The majority of an album’s cost goes back to the music company that owns it. In fact, most of the cost of a CD is hype. The hype the music industry creates to make you want to buy said CD in the first place. Hype has no business in the music industry — talent does.

Many see the music industry as corrupt. Recent allegations of payola on radio stations (an old scam that doesn’t seem to have died) and the corporatization of radio turns people off to mainstream music. To that, I say fine. The less music is sold as a commodity, the better. We’ll have more Kurt Cobains and fewer Mandy Moores. I see this as only a good thing.

Two hundred million people worldwide share music. They are broadening their horizons. They are telling the music industry that hype (read Britney, pop music in general) will die if the content doesn’t mean anything. The music industry shouldn’t be moaning about this, they should be watching and learning. Someone will figure out how to make money with file sharing. The music industry is simply worried it won’t be them.

Rob Deters ([email protected]) is a first year law student.