I recently received an email from our favorite Vice Provost for Student Affairs, Greg Boardman. I can’t remember the exact words, but I think it went something like this:

“Dear Kevin,

You download copyrighted material. You will pay large fines if you continue. Yes, Kevin, I am talking to you. We are always watching.

Love,

Greg Boardman”

Obviously this isn’t verbatim, but you get the point. Like every person between the ages of three and forty-five who owns a computer, I have certainly downloaded the occasional copyrighted file. A song here, a song there. Maybe the latest episode of “The Office” or some funny turtle porn (they make clicking noises!). You know what I’m talking about. Therefore this sudden assault on file sharing scared me more than I would like to admit.

But then I just got angry (note: By “angry” I mean slightly annoyed for the three minutes after reading the email). After all, we are the Napster generation (back when it was free). We are a generation that grew up with the idea that my files are your files. It’s not that we like to steal or break the law, we just like being generous. It’s written in every kindergarten classroom: Sharing is caring.

While I will always blame Metallica, I suppose it was inevitable that the Fat Suits losing money in the music and movie industries would do something to curb our digital charity. First they tried to shut down the peer-to-peer web sites. Then they tried to encrypt their songs and movies. Then they cried and crapped their pants (wiping their asses, of course, with the royalties they just made off of the latest 50 Cent album). Finally they did what anybody would do who is rich and lacking public support: They went straight to Capitol Hill and bought themselves a law — the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), signed by President Clinton in 1998.

I don’t blame the University for fining us. After all, our laundry is free. However, what Stanford and the music industry don’t understand is that college students will always be one step ahead. We spend half of our young adult lives stuck behind a computer and I don’t think a new fine is going to make us suddenly put up the white flag. My hypothetical business school professor told me that demand drives progress. This means, right now, there is a CS major trapped in the dark corners of Sweet Hall programming a new way to share our files behind a digital curtain. They may have “the law,” but we will always have desperation.

In a recent Daily article, Senior University Council Lauren Schoenthaler explained that processing a single complaint from the DMCA can take up to two hours (“Illegal Internet users to face fines,” May 23). Processing three consecutive complaints about a single file-sharing Robin Hood swallows up to 200 hours of manpower. Two hundred hours? I could record the entire album I was going to illegally download and still have a week to make turtle porn in that amount of time.

Rather than reevaluate their business model, big record labels concentrate on attempting to enforce unenforceable measures. Rather than work with music lovers and embrace the power of the Internet, they continuously fight fire with fire. Rather than make music cheaper and widely available across the Web, they continuously invest in better digital encryption and the latest “Now That’s What I Call Music” album (Seriously, folks, these songs are on the radio every five minutes). Fans are apathetic and recording companies are bankrupt. The Internet didn’t kill the music industry. Greed was the culprit.

I love music. In fact, I spend a bigger portion of my monthly paycheck buying music than I do on haircuts, clothes and alcohol combined. While I have illegally downloaded albums (or burned them from a friend because everybody knows it’s the exact same thing, just less convenient), I go to sleep at night with a clear conscience. After all, I wouldn’t want to tell my kindergarten teacher that her motivational posters were a complete lie.

Kevin realizes this column should have been written in 1999, but he could not type back then. Email him at kpadrez@stanford.edu if you love music too.