Trading songs over the Internet became a standard for every hard-core music fan nearly three years ago.

Now, record companies continue to panic about the thousands of customers and millions of dollars they supposedly lose because of MP3s.

As the battle over online music escalates further, are MP3s really a threat to the music industry?

No way.

The music industry is flipping out because the second-rate music it’s peddling won’t sell as highly after the public wises up.

Meanwhile, college kids are downloading dozens of songs every day, mustering a collection that eats up the majority of their computer’s hard drive.

Maybe the millions of screaming teenyboppers haven’t realized it yet, but aside from “I Want it That Way” and “Larger Than Life,” that Backstreet Boys album is entirely made up of filler. It sucks.

Most people who buy that album are only going to listen to those few songs that made it onto pop radio and skip through the rest.

Remember that Gerardo tape you bought back in seventh grade? Was there any song on it besides “Rico Suave” that was actually worth listening to?

How about Snow’s “12 Inches of Snow”? Sure, “Informer” was a fun song for a couple of weeks, but the majority of that record was horrible. You probably threw it out your bedroom window faster than Snow could say “a licky boom boom down.”

A pop album is only as good as the two or three radio singles that accompany it. The rest of the songs are just for show.

The music industry has known that for decades. All they care about is selling records, and all it takes to sell records is one or two heavy-rotation singles. The formula is simple.

But when an industry is “threatened” by piracy, the record companies need to up the standards of the music they’re putting out.

If you can download the radio singles off the latest Third Eye Blind record for free, what’s the point of buying the whole album if the rest of it is crap?

Furthermore, there’s no proof that downloading MP3s has any correlation with a decline in sales. Why? Because there hasn’t been a decline in sales.

The recording industry is making just as much money now, if not more, than it ever has before.

I’m even prepared to argue that MP3s have done nothing but boost the sales of albums, serving as a promotional tool. Since the record industry is having so much financial success, that’s definitely conceivable.

The truth is, no one has done any research to determine what effects MP3s actually have on record sales.

We’ve fallen on hard times as music consumers. I know I’ve said it before, but the music that’s popular now is not stretching the musical boundaries.

Sure, it may be sort of fun to sing along to with your friends in the car, but think about it. Ten years from now, you’re not going to still be rocking out to Len’s “Steal My Sunshine,” Smash Mouth’s “All Star” and Stroke 9’s “Little Black Backpack.” It’s doubtful you’ll even remember those songs.

So instead of wasting your money on second-rate music, why not join me in screwing the music industry and boycott music unless its quality is worthy enough to buy an entire album?

Record companies make enough money already, and it’s about time we as music consumers showed them our opinion matters.

Let’s not allow ourselves to be brainwashed by the corporate music world.

Instead buy music because it’s good. Don’t buy it because some guy in a suit says it’s popular or some radio disc jockey is saying it’s good.

And definitely don’t be influenced by a panel of recording industry “experts” that decides the average flavor-of-the-month pop artist deserves a Grammy.

If rock music has any chance of surviving another decade, it’s not going to happen unless the music industry wakes up.

Keep downloading those MP3s while you still can.

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Conor Bezane is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Chicago. He is arts & entertainment editor of the Daily.