Yarrgh ye owe the government 15 thousand gold dubloons! Why ye ask? Because ye be the scourge of the World Wide Web. You be a music downloadin' pirate. So it’s true the U.S government does have right to fine you for the "illegal" downloading and sharing of copyrighted music. But in this confusion, one may ask what does it all mean?

For a brief history on downloading music, we must go to where it all began; we must start with a program with a spunky little kitty logo called Napster. In short, a Northwestern college student was bored, and he so happened to have a computer at the time. Well, one thing led to another and Napster, an mp3 file-sharing program, was born. Soon afterwards, a puppeteer, a pilot, and a psychiatrist were sharing Metallica’s hit song Master of Puppets. In the true style of a butterfly effect, Metallica themselves became upset and with a team of hotshot lawyers and the Supreme Court, Napster was officially shut down and was no more. Unfortunately for Metallica, several other websites have spawned in the spirit of the fallen Napster and the file share revolution continues. Sites like Kazaa, Limewire, and Morpheus have risen like phoenixes and have proven popular among teens and adults alike.

Music Piracy 1: Metallica/Angry Record Producers 0. Yet in all seriousness, the Federal Government is not messing around with this kind of stuff. In the war on piracy the technology for tracking file sharers is becoming more sophisticated as each day passes. By using courtroom-terrorism of suing downloaders for outstanding fees, there are hopes of scaring others away from similar programs. One by one kids have been being prosecuted around the nation to the point when a person who merely wanted to hear the song "Walking on Sunshine" could be out for more than 10,000 dollars and wishing they had just picked up the CD for $14.98 at a local record shop. Should teens and their parents be charged such huge fines for seemingly harmless acts? Some would argue since the teen downloaders are not making profit from the sharing of these files, they are not encroaching on the copyright laws whatsoever.

The sad truth is that although downloading music fits many people's budgets a lot better than purchasing a CD, that does not make it less illegal. The law is the law! By the U.S copyright laws, duplication of copyrighted material is illegal unless permission is granted by the owner of the copyright and this is the ground on which the Federal Government stands. Whether or not it is right or whether or not to share is no longer the question. The best anybody can do for now is to avoid being caught and handed these hefty charges.

For some tips on how to avoid those pesky federal fines there are but few options. Of the possibilities using a digital masking service such as "anonomyzer.com" or "The Cloak," which reroutes your Internet signal dozens of times between your computer and the downloaders, making it difficult to be traced by "The Man." But these services cost either a monthly fee or require purchase of specialized software, which immediately defeats the purpose of downloading in the first place. There is also the sneaky move of refusing to share your files, and in this matter you cannot be held responsible for the downloads by other users. The most secure way to not get caught is of course to not download at all. So by all means, if you wish to claim the booty of illegal downloads, beware and be prepared to walk the Federal plank.