Music is easy.In its most basic sense, it is easy to make: just whistle. It is easy to hear: just listen. It is easy to find: just go anywhere. It is easy to steal: just download.In fact, it is so easy to steal that people argue whether stealing it is even stealing. Ridiculous commercials appear before movies reminding us that stealing cars and stealing music is the same because some people still claim that downloading music without permission of the artist is not stealing at all but actually good for the artist.Making the debate even more difficult is the seemingly random sentences that have been passed down for those who have stolen songs, regardless of whether it was Crazy Town’s “Butterfly” or Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees.”In October of 2007, a Minnesota woman was fined $220, 000 for sharing 24 particular songs through the Kazaa peer-to-peer client on which she claimed not to have an account, according to CNET. That’s $9,166 per song.The $9,166 could buy a car.It could buy a pony (or two).It could buy six MacBooks.Or one song.This past June, British police arrested the founder and five users of the extremely popular private torrent server Oink.cd. Three of these users were just given their sentences: between 50 and 180 hours of community services and court fees paid in full, according to PitchforkMedia.Without trying to claim America and Britain should hold the same stands insofar as the legal system is concerned, there does seem to be a major discrepancy here.Paying $9,166 per song, 24 times over, for accidentally seeding music on a peer-to-peer program does not compare to community service for belonging to a private server whose only purpose was to share music.It’s like a sun is to a light bulb.It’s the same concept, but the two have almost nothing in common.And one obviously makes more sense.Of course downloading music from the Internet and not paying for it is stealing, but at what point do we seriously start comparing it to Grand Theft Auto as our pre-preview commercials in movie theaters across the country do so often?I guess about 16 months ago.If a crime is committed by millions upon millions of people on a daily basis, does it cease to be a crime?Of course not.But it does become far harder to track and stop, and randomly plucking people out of Minnesota and sticking them with bills higher than a Porsche 911’s price tag is senseless and pathetic and will not deter anyone. While it’s terrifying to think you could be next, it’s far too removed from the reality of a normal twentysomething or teenager sitting in his or her room, desperate to hear Kanye West’s “Heartless” or Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.”There doesn’t seem to be a real reason for fear.But if community service was the penalty, and if it started being handed out like candy on Halloween, we might think twice about grabbing free tunes. And it makes sense — doing work for a few hours for taking something that someone else spent a few hours working on.But, as it stands now, it’s a twisted form of utilitarianism. One person gets punished for all our sins, and we all live on, downloading away with reckless abandon. Because we have no reason not to.Frankly, the way it is doesn’t bother me too much.But I sure as hell bet it bothers the Minnesota woman who may be working the rest of her natural life just to pay off a CD and a half worth of songs.—-Contact Travis Andrews at [email protected]