If you comb through news aggregate websites every morning waiting for your coffee to kick in like I do, you may have come across an odd little story about the recent demise of OiNK, an invite-only torrent site that put links to thousands of music files at one’s fingertips. It was a sprawling, cluttered site that demanded small download-to-upload ratios (1:1 was emphasized) and gave special privileges to users who donated to the site’s administrator, Alan Ellis. The site’s Netherlands-based server was shut down by Dutch police and, pending a full investigation, may lead to criminal indictments for many of its users.

I never had much to do with OiNK; I was aware of it, and checked it out once or twice, but it took a lot more effort to keep up with an account than I was willing to deal with. But I noticed an interesting thing on a message board the other day: a fellow was worrying about his OiNK membership, and here was his worry: “I think most of the stuff I put up there was indie, but I might have put some major label stuff on there too…” The latter possibility had him shakin in his boots, and it sets up the main conundrum about this whole deal: independent labels don’t really care about downloading. I mean, they care, but they don’t let on to the fact: Relapse Records isn’t going to sue anybody for leaking the new Dillinger Escape Plan because they know the overwhelming number of people who give a shit about Dillinger Escape Plan are willing to pay for something, anything, by that band. Who feels that way about Joss Stone? And it’s not just the underground: the Shins’ third album on Sub Pop leaked over three months before its street date (Sub Pop did hire a company to investigate the source of the leak), yet still debuted at #2, selling 100,000 copies in its first week. Would it have gone triple-platinum if nobody had access to it beforehand? Perhaps. Did it benefit from three full months of word-of-mouth publicity? Probably.

Every fiscal quarter brings another set of dire predictions from major music conglomerates. “Sales are down 22%.” “Now they’re down 34%.” “Who can we string up for this?” But read the fine print and you’ll realize that conglomerates are only measuring their own numbers, not the full spectrum of album sales on all labels worldwide. According to an article by producer/engineer Moses Avalon in Alarm, CD sales fell a mere 5 percent in 2006. On top of that, the RIAA's numbers don't include legal downloads, of which half a billion were purchased last year, nor do they include sales of CDs by independent artists and labels. Factor in the sales of ringtones and ballooning value of sales to movie soundtracks, which can net up to $1 million, and the total profits of big corporate labels actually went up 3 percent last year.

There’s a fine line separating true-blue music fans from pasty-faced pirates, but, from my experience at least, the majority of non-compulsive downloaders, ie. the ones who actually listen to what they download, are actual music geeks who appreciate the art form and understand bands can’t survive without fan support.

The people out there who think they're getting away with something have entirely the wrong attitude about the concept of free information exchange, but there are fewer of them than you might think. Just because someone has a record on their computer doesn’t mean they won’t buy a CD for their car or home stereo. Just this afternoon I borrowed a record from a co-worker and ripped it onto my hard drive. I didn’t pay a dime, but at some point in the next month or so I’ll probably mention it to a couple of people who will mention it to a couple of people, which will lead to web searches and maybe a couple more CDs or t-shirts sold down the line. It depends on the quality of the product and the level of emotional attachment the listener is willing to invest. That’s pretty much the way things are going to work from now on, and forcing a Minnesota woman to pay out $220,000 for outmoded copyright laws isn’t going to stop it.

In any event, the little guy will always be left holding the bag: judging by OiNK maestro Alan Ellis’ recent Pitchfork interview, there’s an outside chance he’ll be able to jump through a legal loophole while passing the buck to his site’s members: “I just direct them to [the files]. If somebody wants to illegally download music they are going to do it whether my site is there or not.” A little sleazy, but this guy is in deep with Interpol. What we need right now is a little equilibrium, please. The sky isn’t falling here—it’s just getting much, much bigger.