(October 27, 2003) -- Music has become such an important part of our society that one can’t even fathom what life would be like without it. We hear it on the radio, on television, in movie theaters, in cars, at home, at school and in the workplace. It’s everywhere!

Yet nowadays, we’ve taken something as innocent as enjoying music and turned it into a sin. The dramatic increase in numbers of people downloading music is a result of the recent influx of file-transferring programs on the Internet. It’s as if the more people become aware of the legal issues involved, the more they are tempted to try it out.

Now everyone, from the Britney-crazed 9 year old to the Mozart-loving 49 year old, can download programs such as Kazaa in a matter of minutes and then proceed to effortlessly break the law. To steal, that is, from hard-working musicians who are just trying to make a living like everyone else.

Believe it or not, downloading music off the Internet is stealing. Contrary to popular belief, artists don’t really make millions of dollars in profit from their CDs and concerts. According to the Rap Coalition’s Intelligence Program (rapcointelpro.com), artists are the last people to get paid for their work. Each label, manager, lawyer, accountant and many others come before them. Not to mention their fan clubs, studio, family and all the other people artists support financially. When all this is taken out of musicians’ paychecks, they receive as little as $25,000 a year – or $12 an hour. When we download their songs offline we are basically robbing artists even more of their well-deserved money.

I don’t see what the big deal is in simply buying the CDs you like instead of ripping off the musicians. You can buy them at most stores for $14, or even less when they’re on sale. That won’t exactly make a huge dent in your paycheck (or allowance), will it?

I’m sure that at some point we’ve all acknowledged the fact that we are, in a sense, shoplifting. So why do we keep making excuses? As author Joanna Macy says, “Each act of denial, conscious or unconscious, is an abdication of our power to respond.” Artists and their lawyers can rant and rave all they want, but in the end the choice is up to us to make. Whether you look at it legally or morally, downloading free music is wrong.