Joel Tenenbaum, a Boston University graduate student, was arrested and brought to federal court for illegally downloading and sharing 30 songs online. He is now forced to parcel out a total 675,000 dollars to the respective record labels.

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Imagine a young kid going for his/her masters in business or just attempting to graduate from their high school, working tirelessly to understand the world of cash flow or Shakespeare’s wordy soliloquies — staying up for long hours and getting the bare minimum amount of sleep. Sounds horrible does it not? Sometimes the only way to find a break and digest the monotony of high school or college life is decompressing with a favorite playlist. Now envision that same student is arrested and thrust in front of a federal judge that says he has to pay 675,000 dollars to compensate for thirty measly songs (barely even two albums). This has been a common occurrence as the government unjustly cracks down upon the “horrific evil illegal music down-loaders”. The government seems to liken these “lucky-enough to be caught” individuals to pirates; as if they raped and pillaged for fun on weekends. In reality those “cretins and burglars” that browse music sharing websites are neighbors, coworkers, classmates, teachers, friends and family just taking advantage of the easily accessible programs that swim around the shallows of the internet’s cesspool. Illegal music downloading is something that will not and should not stop as it would be a waste of government time and the public’s money.

Many people think they are fighting for the artist by aggressively attacking music sharing but in reality they are just making futile grabs at an intangible goal that is: saving the music industry. The “artist defenders” argue that if one illegally downloads music it takes money away from the artist but before the new millennium the music industry totaled 30 billion dollars in net worth and this year  the music industry is only at a measly 16.5 billion because programs such as iTunes and Spotify are draining the life out of them not, contrary to popular belief, illegal music downloading. “A 9.99$ purchase from iTunes nets the artist .94 cents. Itunes gets 3.70$ and the record company takes 5.95$. A musician needs to sell 12,399 songs a month to make the wages of a McDonald’s employee, a horrific statistic from an economic analyst who decided to do the math. Spotify is even worse than iTunes as it takes 4,053,110 listens to a single song to make minimum wage. Artists are making next to nothing for their recordings. The comparably small number of those who are sharing illegal music do not even begin to scrape the music salary black hole that is sucking down the profit of every last artist.

Thinking back to when the college student was forced to pay that considerable amount of money for illegally downloading music; his money did not go to the artist but to the “illustrious” record companies famous for being the epitome of corporate greed.  The record labels avaricious behavior is slowly choking the life out of the beloved music industry.

The days of the rockstar are obsolete and many musicians are now blue collar workers just trying to scrape together enough money to support themselves. Illegal music downloading is a scapegoat that the public is blaming the music industry’s failure on. The truth is that piracy is actually on the decline showing only a minuscule impact on the industry’s pecuniary dealings. This means that music sharing was an extremely small part of the bigger digital bubble that consumed music publishing in the early 2000’s. For someone to say that music sharing is the reason that the artist is struggling is, more than ever, ridiculous and, simply put, just a way for aggravated music fans to feel like they are fighting for the common good.

Hark! Avid music listeners do not fret or fear there is a way to save your favorite artist. You will have to do more than just listen to their music. Sure, you can buy their album on iTunes or the merchandise on amazon but the best way to stimulate your preferred musicians wallet is donating to them directly. So go ahead and download your music but give to thine artist directly from your Paypal account and maybe, just maybe the artists will be able to afford to continue to pump out the sounds and beats you love.