Whispering grasses, your ISP may not be on your side

There are loads of reasons why people download stuff they probably shouldn't but it's unlikely that not knowing that they're doing something technically illegal is one of them.

It's also highly unlikely that people were using next-door's wifi to suck the profits out of Mark Ronson ­ although they might do now they know it could land their neighbour in court. It's the sort of sneaky trick that Donald Sinden might have pulled on Windsor Davies in a particularly static episode of Never The Twain.

When the BPI come knocking for me, and Windsor who to be ironic is probably caught IP -handed with an mp3 of his number-one smash Whispering Grass, do we have any defense? Well, not really, but I still firmly believe that the record industry is wrong in persecuting people for wanting to listen to music.

The main problem facing the BPI, EMI, ABC and the rest is that people have simply changed the way they consume music. While us old hands still feel the need to own music, and will often buy the same stuff over and over in different formats (three copies and counting of Transvision Vamp's Velveteen), it's my impression that "the kids" have The Box, Internet radio, last.fm and other people's tinny mobile phone speakers offering them all the music they want without ever even thinking of buying any.

That, and the dearth of decent pop stars, is what's likely to be causing a drop in sales of records rather than downloading. People who buy records tend to have a certain amount available to spend, and if they can hear (or get) the mainstream stuff for free that frees up their money for the more niche tunes they wouldn't have bought before. I can't imagine buying an Oasis record these days, and not just because they've gone rubbish. When 'The World Turns and I'm on it' or whatever the new album is called comes out I'll be able to hear it all over the radio, on building sites, on filler TV specials presented by Lisa Rogers I won't ever need to plan to hear it, I just will.

If I was particularly caught by anything while it was being overplayed before release I might torrent the album, but once it was properly out into the world, why would you need to? Do you ever think that you'll need a copy of 'No Woman No Cry', you'll hear it as incidental music on telly or in unimaginative function rooms for the rest of your life.

Compare that with a band like the ZX Spectrum Orchestra who are not likely to trouble the Guinness Book of Hit Singles. I wanted to hear some of their stuff as I'd been told really good things about them (and hear it before they play Supersonic too) so I took a trip to the interweb. After listening to a few tracks on MySpace, I knew I wanted to hear them again. "The kids" may have been happy with dipping back into the MySpace page, but I wanted the songs for my own. Despite knowing that I could rip the songs from the web (even with MySpace's best efforts it is possible), I paid my money and bought them. Partly because I like to own everything, and there are tracks on the album not on MySpace, but mostly because I knew that they could do with the money.

Music still makes a fair amount, it's just that concert tickets, merchandise and the like don't make money for the labels. It's possible that the record companies do need to find another way to make money, but scaring their customers into hearing less music doesn't seem to be the way forward.

If you hear something you love, you want it. If you never hear it you won't. I'm sure Feargal Sharkey, head of the BPI, knows that if John Peel hadn't played 'Teenage Kicks' over and over (for free, to us all) we wouldn't have bought it. ­Today's Peel is the internet, let it play what it likes.