One of the most dizzying effects of internet infancy was the availability of free music. A consumer utopia seemed to lay before us, where digital files would essentially be held in common and all music could be ours for free at the click of a button. The music industry began collapsing, and has been continuing to do so ever since.

Joel Tenenbaum might be the marker in history that says that era is over. Charged with downloading music from Napster and Kazaa (starting in 1999), he faces fines for every song he downloaded. In the only other case prosecuted thus far a downloader was fined $1.9 million for downloading 28 songs. A huge fine for what seems like a small crime.  Complaining about injustice, however, is not killin’ it. When the technology to take media for free came out, the anonymous online population used it.  Now that the technology to “take it back” exists, the music industry police will use that.  Youtube, for instance, has soundwave records for every copyrighted song that exists.  If you try to upload a video with copyrighted sound, it will robotically detect it and mute your piece.   I suppose we have to admit that’s fair play.

I downloaded Toto’s “Storms of Africa” in 2005.  Wonder how much I owe?