MUSIC PIRATES, YOU'RE SUNK

In early September, the US music industry is planning to break every known rule of corporate public relations by suing hundreds of upstanding citizens for stealing songs online. The legal confrontation will pit a small group of powerful, technophobic oligopolists against a hip, youthful army of digital sophisticates - who are the very heart of the companies' consumer base. The Recording Industry Association of America's upcoming legal war on digital pirates is shaping up as a massacre. The fact is that the upcoming legal blitz has captured the imagination of one important group of people: normally law-abiding citizens who deceived themselves into believing that all music should magically be available for free. Now that the danger of downloading is about to increase dramatically, many are likely to be driven right into the arms of legitimate Internet music services.