On Jan. 27, the music industry filed 717 additional lawsuits against individuals who allegedly used file-sharing networks to share copyrighted materials. If all of those lawsuits are successful, only roughly 6 billion violators will remain unsued.

In a related story, commercial radio and the vast majority of products from the music industry suck.

These seem to be the two main strategies the music industry is using to combat file sharing: Sue music lovers who share their music and make music so bad no one will bother sharing it.

Shockingly, the music industry is managing to lose the battle on both fronts. A new technology called BitTorrent has increased the efficiency of sharing and stopped the music industry from gumming up file-sharing networks with false files (another strategy used by the music industry). Also, good music is still being made despite the industry’s best efforts. Modest Mouse recently made a decent album that had some popular success even after signing with Sony Music.

But is this erosion of the music industry’s profits something to rejoice or lament? Doesn’t the music industry represent the artists’ interests? Won’t it be bad for music if they stop making insane amounts of money?

Not really.

Undercutting the music industry’s profits can’t possibly hurt the quality of its products because they can’t possibly get any worse. But what about Modest Mouse? Well, it was around long before Sony signed it, and signing with Sony has definitely not made it a better band.

In addition, the music industry does not represent the artists’ interests. It represents the interest of those who have made money by delivering music in a compact, usable form. The Internet now can provide that service for free. Those two facts spell the inevitable doom of the music industry. Really, the music industry is fighting progress, not music listeners. This is what ultimately makes it and those who support it so despicable.

This reminds me of a story I saw on the History Channel about the bridges of London. A long time ago, the bridges over the Thames River in London were all low, so traffic on the river couldn’t pass under them. This meant that goods came to the city from the south and were carted around town to the businesses that wanted them.

Eventually, some people realized this was really inefficient and that it would be better if they raised the bridges so freight could be dropped off directly to businesses on the Thames. As you might expect, the carters tried to stop the raising of the London bridges, sensing their livelihood was at stake. Long story short, the bridges were raised and the carters were losers.

Well, as a wise man once said, “Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it.”

The end of the music industry is inevitable.

But do we have a moral obligation to not share files? Many dirty lawyers and politicians have told us that this free exchange of information is wrong; it is stealing. It is not wrong or stealing, though. In fact, it is the exact opposite.

Why? Stealing is taking someone’s tangible property without their permission. Intellectual property is different. Theft of intellectual property involves stealing someone else’s work and labeling it yours or using it to make money for yourself.

File sharing always labels music correctly — there is no threat of someone will claim they made the music Modest Mouse actually made. Furthermore, no file sharers make money from their sharing. In fact, people that share music are using their bandwidth, which costs money.

File sharing isn’t stealing, it isn’t wrong and it isn’t going to hurt music in general. It does, however, hurt some corporate pricks and the dirty lawyers who represent them.