Those who share, care.

If you have immersed yourself to any degree in the world of music, you undoubtedly have your own personal collection on your computer. With the exponential explosion of the ipod onto the music scene, everyone has an Itunes library these days. Here you can hoard music to your hearts content by obtaining tunes through many a fashion. You can take the commercial route and hand over 99 cents a song [$1.29 for Top-chart songs and those deemed popular], or you can venture down the road of file-sharing. If you're not familiar, you've really been missing out. Through torrenting and other Peer-to-peer sharing outlets you can obtain just about anything you could ever imagine with the click of a button. There is continuing controversy over the validity of "sharing" music files, yet this outlet is growing in popularity. And frankly the truth is, those considered "Illegal downloaders" Buy more music. I've seen it first hand. "People who are music superfans do more of everything to do with music: they see more live shows, listen to more radio, buy more CDs, buy more botlegs of live shows, buy more t-shirts, talk about music more, do more downloading -- all of it." Nix the radio part, I don't necessarily find that relevant. But as for the rest of that quote, I find this conclusion entirely true. True lovers and devotees of music often lend just as much of their money to what they feel passionate about, as they devote to being under the influence of the tunes themselves. "The people who file-share are the ones who are interested in music," said Mark Mulligan of Forrester Research. "They use file-sharing as a discovery mechanism." This is exactly what it is. It is a risk free way to trial music, which can later evolve into a avid following of musicians and artists.

Countries such as Australia have already taken actions against illegal downloading by restricting those who offend the policies of their internet access. But does this actually benefit the music industry? Having family from Australia, I know what a separated world its like living in this country. Everything is delayed, more expensive and very VERY different. Hard copy CDs can be exponentially more. If you can't download music to trial it [or even pay for the music and download it online], how informed is one going to be in the music world? How can you then go to concerts? Buy merch? How often do people blindly buy CDs without first hearing the music? The percentage is small.

There has been some talk of America adopting similar policies regarding this file-sharing phenomenon. This would never get far. At least it shouldn't. Music downloading is a frontier of discovery and without it, the music industry would not flourish as it does today.