Stealing music creates no remorse
Commentary by Ryan Eloe

When I was in high school, I copied some songs onto an cassette tape for my girlfriend. I didn’t pay the artist any royalties. I am a copyright violator and she was my accomplice in crime.

Yet, the FBI wasn’t on to me yet. In fact, they still probably don’t know.

I copied a song by Sixpence None the Richer onto the cassette tape, yet Sixpence probably never found out either. I don’t think they particularly would care. It was for my girlfriend, and I am sure Sixpence was glad to know they made the cut.

Yet, when I came to college, my list of copyright violations grew at a new record pace.

No longer was I just pirating songs on to a cassette tape. I was downloading the songs from the Internet and transferring them from other people on campus through the Network Neighborhood. My hard drive began to fill up with songs from compact discs I would never consider purchasing. Suddenly I could listen to a song by Collective Soul, the New Radicals, DCTalk, and many other bands with out giving the band a cent.

But it’s okay. It was just me listening to the songs. I had just copied them over off the Network Neighborhood from someone else’s computer. No big deal. Right?

When making illegal copies of music was simply limited to recording a song on to a cassette tape for a friend or two, the scope of an illegal copy didn’t go very far. Yet, with music technology being as it is, I can transfer music online in just seconds. Especially with the joy of cable modems and other high-speed connections, I can zap a copy of a song to a friend, and he or she could have an almost perfect copy of it. Then my friend could share with virtually anyone with a downgrade in the quality of the recording. The modes and forms of music copyright violation have changed dramatically. The artist probably could sleep fine at night after I copied a song or two off their album on to a cassette. Yet, I understand their concerns when entire albums are up for grabs for anyone who has Internet and takes the time to download the songs they enjoy.

The government is not going to secretly come and raid computers at universities across the nation and issue hefty fines as they tabulate the number of illegal songs you have on your hard drive and in your compact disc cases. Yet, it seems that the current legal environment of the music industry’s laws need to adjust to give credit to the creative accomplishments of musicians.

If we were all people of integrity, this wouldn’t be an issue at all. Unfortunately, because no one is going to catch us, we feel no remorse. Most people don’t rush to delete that which we have not right to possess. Moreover, I certainly don’t know anyone who has sent a check off to an artist after they copied a song. No one says “Thank you Lifehouse for letting me copy some of your songs. Here’s five bucks, I appreciate it.”

On a more rational level, it seems ridiculous to ask us to stay away from the opportunities of getting the songs that we like at no cost when the opportunity is so readily afforded to us. Yet I think we should be sensitive to this issue and be willing to change. We shouldn’t become angered when Napster shuts down, or if TCU no longer allows MP3 file sharing, or if producers encode CDs so they can’t be burned.

The times have changed. No longer are we spending an hour to copy a couple of songs. And as expected the times have changed faster than the rules.

But the rules will surely change. They always do.

Ryan Eloe is a junior international economics major from Centennial, Colo. He can be reached at (r.c.eloe@student.tcu.edu).

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