I have grown up in a very interesting time. I have been able to watch as the computer industry hit new heights with individual consumers. I have seen the Internet grow from nothing to a powerful economic and intellectual tool. I have also had the privilege of spending a couple of my college years illegally downloading music as fast as my Internet connection would allow.

I started using Napster shortly after its inception in 1999. I downloaded about 150 songs during my senior year of high school — being somewhat limited by my 56K dial- up Internet access.

Upon arriving at Iowa State in the fall of 2000, I found there was no speed barrier. Before, I was lucky to get a song in a half-hour; now I could download a song in less than a minute.

Like many others, I didn’t really think about the possible ramifications of my actions. Was it right for me to receive copyrighted material for free?

Was I stealing food from the mouths of starving artists? Would Britney Spears have to settle for the $5,000 purse because I didn’t want to buy her latest work of crap? These were questions I didn’t pose to myself, maybe for good reason.

While it is very clear that pirating music is not legal, is it really as bad as it has been made to be? The Recording Industry Association of America wants me to think so.

After seeing a decline in sales starting in the time period where file sharing and CD burning became commonplace, it was easy to point at these two widespread activities and cry foul. However, a situation similar to this one came to pass just over two decades ago; it’s important to see what happened then and apply it to what is happening now.

Record sales began to fall in 1978 which was right around the time consumers acquired the ability to copy audio tapes. “Home taping is killing music” was the slogan adopted by the recording industry.

The slump in sales only lasted a couple years and as it turns out, blank tapes weren’t the culprit. Instead, consumers were shifting their tastes away from the popular music of the time, disco.

Perhaps we are experiencing another taste shift. Perhaps people don’t want to buy the music they hear on the radio anymore— I don’t. If this is true, the RIAA is shooting itself in the foot by further alienating people who have begun to have a moderate distaste for the popular music they push.

Instead of harnessing a tool the music industry could easily use to create fan bases for upcoming artists, the RIAA sues grandmothers and 12 year-olds. Could it be that these bad business decisions have contributed to falling sales?

Recent studies by researchers at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina have provided support for file sharing. Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf kept tabs on 680 different albums over the course of 17 weeks in 2002.

“While downloads occur on a vast scale, most users are likely individuals who would not have bought the album even in the absence of file sharing,” concludes the research duo. “At most, file sharing can explain a tiny fraction of this decline.”

I can certainly understand a small decline in sales. No longer do people have to buy the album of a one-hit wonder to hear their flavor- of-the-week song.

On the flipside of this, file sharing has helped to increase exposure for lesser-known artists, possibly offsetting any negative effects on so-called popular artists.

Ipsos-Reid, a market research company, also studied the nature of file sharing in our country. In June 2002, the company reported that 81 percent of file sharers bought as many or more CDs as they did prior to being able to download music.

Is file sharing illegal? Yes. Is file sharing evil? Absolutely not. The RIAA will never stop the pirating of music. Because of this, it’s time for the music industry to evolve and take advantage of something that could be a great asset to them.

People like me will keep downloading music online. Those same people will also keep buying CDs of their favorite artists. Music is such a personal thing; people don’t want to be told how to listen to it.