By Katelin Paiz

Daily Titan Staff Writer

Around 40 million songs were downloaded illegally last year, and new statistics show that 95 percent of music downloads are illegal.

I’ll be the first to admit that I am guilty. Over the last four years or so I have downloaded hundreds of songs illegally. But truthfully, who hasn’t?

We’ve all heard the horror stories of people getting caught and having to pay thousands of dollars in fines, as was the case with a Boston University doctoral student who was charged with illegally downloading 30 songs and in turn was forced to pay a $675,000 fine.

Clearly, the music industry is trying to make an example of the people who do more than the average amount of file sharing. But is making someone pay $675,000 for 30 songs really an effective way to run an industry?

Findings from Harvard Business School suggest that illegal downloading may not hurt the industry after all. Their justification being that the people who typically download music illegally are teenagers or college age individuals who are “money-poor but time-rich.” In other words, they are the kind of people who wouldn’t buy the songs that they downloaded anyway. The music industry then cannot claim to be losing money from those people.

The sales from the first half of the year even seem to support these findings. The number of illegal downloads and music sales both increased.

Now before Metallica comes after me with a baseball bat, I should say that I’m not entirely sold on these particular findings, but I do think that illegal downloading is not something that the music industry will be able to stop with scare tactics.

It’s clear that making examples of starving college students that download illegally because they can’t afford to buy the CD is only aggravating the problem. After all, we are the computer-savvy generation, and we will always find a way around these barriers.

In fact, if you Google search “illegal downloading” right now it will come up with pages of sites explaining how to avoid getting caught. File sharing is also expanding to the film industry — though somewhat less successfully. If I wanted to, there are at least three Web sites I know of off the top of my head, where one can watch streaming-movies that are still in theaters.

Times are changing, and the entertainment industry needs to keep up if they want to continue making money. It doesn’t matter how much the industries rant and rave. It’s clear that legislation is not going to stop the “money-poor but time-rich.”

So why not try a new approach? And no, I don’t mean iTunes.

By Eric Broude

Daily Titan Staff Writer

In the last 10 years, file sharing has become a plague to the music industry.

According to an analysis by the Institute for Policy Innovation, “Global music piracy causes $12.5 billion in economic losses every year, 71,060 U.S. jobs lost, a loss of $2.7 billion in workers’ earnings and a loss of $422 million in tax revenues, $291 million in personal income tax and $131 million in lost corporate income and production taxes.”

That’s a lot of money. That’s a lot of people not getting paid because someone didn’t want to pay for the latest hit by Lady Gaga.

A common argument for piracy is the idea that most file sharing is being done by people who can’t afford to pay for the music and wouldn’t buy the songs either way; therefore, the music industry isn’t losing any money over file sharing.

I can’t afford to buy a Ferrari either. Should I go steal one? It’s not really that big of a deal because I wouldn’t have been able to buy it anyway.

Sure, the car is a more tangible possession, but it’s the same idea. There are a lot of things I’d like to own but can’t afford. That doesn’t mean I have the right to just take them. We’ve evolved past the ideal of “want, take, have.”

Are you still saying the Ferrari is different? OK, how about this. Let’s say my friend bought a Ferrari fair and square.

Now, I have this brand new technology that can create a copy of something, let’s call it the Sminternet.

So I go over to my friend’s place and copy his Ferrari so I can have one.

Then I start making more copies of it and just give Ferraris away to anyone who wants one at absolutely no charge.

I also give them the Sminternet so they can start making their own copies and giving them away for free.

Do you really think that wouldn’t hurt the Ferrari industry?

File sharing has become one of those things that everyone does because the risk is low, like driving after you’ve had just one drink. No one thinks they will get caught, so they just do it, regardless of whether or not it’s wrong.

When someone does get caught, they complain about being charged unfairly, even when they admit to having broken the law. Well, if you didn’t want to get charged thousands of dollars, you should have just paid the $30 for those 30 songs.

You were really too cheap to just pay a dollar per song? Even less if you buy the full albums?

The fact is, downloading music is still stealing.

If you make the conscious choice to break the law, then you deserve what comes to you when you get caught.