Kathlyn Hotynski

The United States has unofficially been conducting a “War on Drugs” since an 1880 agreement with China that made importing opium into the country illegal. In a move that had more widespread effects in the 1920s, the prohibition of alcohol was enacted attempting to curb drinking nationwide. Coupled with the bans on drugs such as marijuana and cocaine, these government actions against drugs were, and are, theoretically supposed to result in producers spending more than they receive from buyers, and therefore eliminating the selling and usage of illegal drugs.

Instead, in the 1920s, drinking was not decreased or eliminated on a massive scale, as producers just found loopholes so they could continue to sell booze for profit. And as we all know, alcohol is not

illegal now. Likewise, despite the fact that pot is illegal, it is pretty evident in modern times that it isn’t very hard to find someone willing to sell it to you for a given price.

While the drug war pits government against producers and users, it is clear to the average American that the U.S. drug policies haven’t done much to change the culture. Basically, the drug users and dealers are winning a war they don’t even know they’re fighting.

And so it goes with illegally downloading songs and movies from the Internet.

Now while a war on drugs is obviously a more serious situation, it draws a strong parallel to the current war against illegal Internet file sharing waged by the government and music corporations across America.

According to an article on the WEAU-TV Web site, 23 UW-Eau Claire students have been subpoenaed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) because of the illegal downloading of songs off of Internet database networks.

To find out if a student is illegally downloading music and videos, the RIAA checks the Internet Protocol (IP) address, which is an identification number picked up every time a student goes to download a song, according to the article. All the RIAA has to do after that is match the IP address with the face of the user and they have themselves a lawsuit.

Eau Claire is one of 36 colleges across the nation that has been subpoenaed and told to release the names of those students believed to be violating copyright laws on campus Internet networks, according to an e-mail from Eau Claire Chief Information Officer Chip Eckart.

Obviously, more than 23 students at Eau Claire illegally share music with one another through the Internet and other technological advancements, so clearly these lawsuits are meant to scare students away from using file sharing networks like Kazaa, LimeWire and Morpheus.

It is illegal to download someone’s music through the Internet, but a lot of music being downloaded is actually from bands or artists who already swim in pools of money and are just complaining because they can.

It’s not like Metallica is starving for money at this point in their careers. Britney Spears, Dr. Dre and Jay-Z aren’t suffering financially from free music.

In contrast, many smaller underground bands relying on live performances and word-of-mouth communication thrive from the freedom to download because their name travels by Internet faster than by posters. Web sites like Purevolume.com and Myspace.com provide a steady public vehicle for free user music downloads. Yet somehow these sites aren’t being subpoenaed or prosecuted, despite the overwhelming availability of free music.

This argument boils down to the rich minority of major labels and musicians jumping up in arms and the poor majority of struggling musicians staying in the shadows content with the exposure.

Every band, even Metallica, starts at the bottom by bootlegging and swapping songs and recordings for their friends and fans. Free music has been around longer and has come in more forms than the Internet, including CD burning and tape recordings that were just as easy to copy in the 1980s as CDs are now. But because the Internet is available to pretty much everyone in America with a computer, big musicians and corporations think doing something now might stop the snowball from growing any larger.

In reality, they need to accept the fact that too much action too late is a waste of their time. I put it on the same level of ignorance as the current Major League Baseball steroid investigation – you can’t stop something that began in the past because it will only continue to stay ahead of whatever punishment you dish out.

The only big difference metaphorically between drugs and music is that downloading music isn’t hurting those that don’t already have the means to support themselves. There are obviously a few exceptions, but the majority of local and underground bands understand music should be free and not just limited to people with money because arrogant rock stars can’t stand to see a small sum of cash fall between their fingers.

Cracking down symbolically may scare a few people away from free music, but it will never stop file sharing programs from staying one step ahead of the law, especially when the bands themselves do not show major opposition to downloading.

Music and music scenes won’t