Stop, thief!
BY JAMES A. FUSSELL
Knight Ridder Newspapers

Taking free music off the internet? The record industry considers you a criminal. Is it right?

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Every morning Mason Treadwell begins his day the same way -- relaxing in his living room toggling between thousands of dollars worth of free music.

Like many of his friends, Treadwell downloads digital music on his computer using a high-speed Internet connection and a file-sharing network called Kazaa. He hasn't bought a CD in years. He doesn't have to. Whether it's the Rolling Stones or the Stone Temple Pilots, Three Dog Night or Three Doors Down, he burns his own digital copies for pennies on the dollar.

He's hardly alone. Today an estimated 60 million Americans have snatched free music off the Web. And now, as the music industry files hundreds of lawsuits in an effort to stop them, moms and dads, kids and college students, grandmothers and grandfathers have to ask themselves a question.

Am I a criminal?

The question causes some to squirm and others to rage.

Put Treadwell in the rage category.

A criminal? the 36-year-old fast-food restaurant manager asks. If I'm a criminal then there's no hope for this country. 'Cause I got news for you. We've got a whole nation of criminals. My grandfather's a criminal. My 8-year-old niece is a criminal. I just don't feel like millions of people are criminals.

Going after downloaders

The music industry disagrees.

If you download music, said Jonathan Lamy, spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America, you are breaking the law. It takes money from record companies, stores, singers and songwriters.

Since file sharing soared several years ago, Lamy said, music sales are down 31 percent, and countless record store employees have lost their jobs. Billboard magazine estimated that 1,000 record stores have closed in the past six months.

That has big music playing hardball, using the full force of American copyright law to scare the Kazaa out of downloaders. The industry recently filed more than 250 lawsuits against those with significant stashes of music, including one against a 12-year-old girl that sent many parents into a tizzy.

And why not? Penalties for violating copyright are medievally harsh -- up to $150,000 a song, although the industry has settled for far less. Worse, the fines may not be dismissible in bankruptcy court.

The suits have had an effect. This year, according to the market research company NPD Group Inc., the number of American households downloading music from the Net has fallen 4 million from 14.5 million to 10.5 million.

Fear and shame

Just news of the lawsuits was enough to put the fear of God into Molly Scharig. The Missouri woman told her 11-year-old son to dump the downloading.

We heard the companies were trying to come after parents, she said.

It concerned us. We decided it was against the law, and we didn't want to risk the possibility of a lawsuit.

But day after day, millions keep downloading and sharing files. File sharing allows computer users on the same peer-to-peer networks -- such as Kazaa, Grokester or Morpheus -- to easily swap digital music files stored on their hard drives.

Why do they do it?

The reasons are as varied as music itself.

People are used to thinking that if they're not supposed to get something for free, then there will be something to stop them, said Ben Eggleston, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Kansas. Merchandise alarms, store security guards or whatever. It takes more self-restraint not to download music when it's there for the taking.

And let's face it, clicking a mouse in your den doesn't induce the same shame as shoving something into your pocket and skulking out of a store.

It's harder for people to think of intellectual property as genuine property, like clothes or cars, Eggleston said. But it's basically the same thing, legally speaking.

Muddying the waters even further are artists such as the Grateful Dead, Phish, Limp Bizkit and Tech N9ne who say its fine to download their songs.

Another reason is the nature of the Internet itself. It's still the wild west of new technology -- vast, untamed and unregulated. It grew so fast, it outstripped anyone's ability to control it.

And since the Web developed on the back of free content, grabbing free music on file-sharing networks didn't seem so much like stealing as it did a natural extension of the free universe users had come to know. By the time they discovered differently, many had downloaded hundreds, even thousands of songs.

Fighting back

Today song trading is so socially acceptable many see it as no different from participating in an office betting pool, or speeding.

Illegal, sure. But nobody's all that worked up about it. The result: a flood of creative rationalizations as people try to reconcile their morality with their mania for free music.

Eric Daicy, a carpet cleaner from Merriam, Kan., said he understands why the record companies are coming after excessive downloaders with thousands of songs. But I'm just trying to find older songs that are hard to find in the stores. I don't think they'll come after me. At least I hope not.

Adam Ward, a University of Kansas senior, acknowledges that file sharing is illegal. What he objects to is the music industry's extreme response to it -- namely suing its customers. Instead of suing, he said, the industry should be trying to figure out more positive ways to make file sharing both profitable and legal.

Until they do, he's supporting a grass-roots boycott of the Recording Industry Association of America and its artists. Through a boycott site (www.boycottriaa.com), he and others have made donations to those who have been sued.

Legal music sharing

Lamy, the music industry spokesman, said that's misguided.

First, he said, there are many legal alternatives to illegal file sharing that can be found at www.musicunited.org. The site also lists ways to get rid of your peer-to-peer network, or to turn off your file sharing capability, which will greatly decrease the likelihood of your being a target.

Second, Lamy said, only the threat of lawsuits will make people change their ways.

No matter how many legal alternatives there are, no matter how nicely you ask, there will still be people who will take music that's not theirs. So we need to offer both the carrot and the stick.

Legal sites require you to pay for your downloads. And there are many reasons to go legal, Lamy said.

On peer-to-peer networks, you get junk, you get spam, you get spyware, you open up your hard drive to viruses, and you get inferior audio quality on many of the downloads. And it's often very inconvenient and difficult to find what you are looking for. So why don't you go to a legal service?

Lamy also says that instead of music, downloaders can just as easily stumble across pornography.

That's another angle for parents to be concerned about, Lamy said.

Still, two-thirds of the downloaders say they don't care about the law, according to a recent survey by the nonprofit Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Back in his living room, Mason Treadwell said he doesn't want to hurt anybody.

I'm not a bad guy, he said. And I'm not public enemy No. 1. I'm just a guy who likes music. What do we have to do to make this work?
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