Perhaps this has happened to you. You are driving with the radio on, or sitting in a restaurant, or walking through the mall, and a song comes on that catches your ear. Hours later, you realize you are still playing the song over and over in your mind. Think of The Red Hot Chili Peppers' Give It Away Now, or Madonna's Like a Virgin, or whatever song has caught your ear (one of those songs catches my ear like a wicked coat hanger--not all catchiness is good).

If you've experienced this, it's not an accident. Every musician, from jingle writers to Mozart, knows the mark of a good song is its catchiness. The language of musicians indicates this: 'catchy' couldn't be more obvious, and the chorus, or catchy bass line, or guitar riff, isn't called 'the hook' for nothing.

Musicians—usually thought of as altruistic bards-of-hearts—could be compared to cigarette manufacturers in the simmering legal battle regarding the rights of consumers to share music files over the Internet. While getting hooked on a song isn't detrimental to your health, your physical health anyway, I want to suggest there are some grounds for questioning the legal status of someone's intentionally causing a psychic or melodic addiction (temporary as they are) in consumers.

The natural first reaction to this line is, "Get a grip! You’re talking about a song, right, not heroin?!" Normally, I would never have allowed myself to put a catchy song in the same brain compartment as a catchy substance, if it weren't for the smug arguments of record industry folks in their crusade against music "thieves." So, here is an argument, bolstered by analogies, and defended from objections, that stealing music is right (or not stealing if you care about retaining the pejorative essence of ‘stealing’), in certain cases, and that musicians and the music industry ought to lose some ground in their legal fight with file sharing internet companies like Napster, of yesteryear, and Grokster, Limewire, etc., of today. (You may take the following as a serious argument, or as an illustration of the silliness of excusing personal responsibility with addiction arguments in general.)

Here’s the argument…

Songs are like drugs. Public media (radio, movies, TV, etc.) gets you hooked on them, then the artists and producers, instead of being satisfied with their public media revenues, demand that you pay for the privilege of feeding your new addictions—rather than acknowledging they have put things mesmerizing and insidious into your mind (as you hum or whistle the ditties till you're half mad). Having infected folks with their tunes in this way, those infected have a right to the songs, if not the media on which they have historically been provided (the music industry doesn’t have to give you tapes, CDs, records, etc., but they can’t justly withhold the songs themselves.

If music doesn't have a strong effect on you, this argument won't move you much. “Addiction? Come on!” But if you think music doesn't have this effect on lots of folks, and produce behavior similar to those addicted to nicotine or other drugs, you haven't been looking in the right places. Have you listened to a radio station where folks call in pleading for a song they need to hear? Have you witnessed that they sometime get angry when they don't get their song? Have you experienced this yourself? Have you witnessed or participated in heated exchanges over which music is going to play in the car? Honestly now: have you ever shouted, “Shut up would you! I’m trying to hear this song!” I thought so.

Now, these similarities to drug addiction could be confirmed by Dr. Science, but we don't need that. If you have never been moved by a song so that you couldn't sit still, "rocked out" in your car, or never been moved by music to work up a sweat, then, again, this argument won't appeal to you much. But consider ...

Songs don't just work like drugs on people, they also work like computer viruses. If our minds are analogous to computer software, songs are often guilty of causing glitches. Have you ever found it hard to concentrate because of a tune? Have you planned to carry out some activity only to find yourself sitting in the car waiting for a song to end, shamefully pretending to look for something while people pass wondering what you're doing? Yes, your software has been compromised.

Do you believe in witchcraft or voodoo? Do you think someone can get into your mind and put a spell on you? Of course you do. You've heard the Beatles, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, …

So now, looking back at the argument, you’re no longer sure the term 'insidious' was too strong. And if you are still sure, wait till the next time you can't get a tune out of your head, and remember the argument. Just wait.

Being addicted doesn't excuse you from paying for cigarettes or alcohol, but if you became addicted because the cigarette or alcohol maker got a grip on your mind in some way comparable to the way music does (via unavoidable public outlets like radio, TV, restaurants, malls, stores, etc.), then griping about having to pay for your fix wouldn't seem so unreasonable. Ask yourself, what other industry beside the music industry gives out actual samples that you must avoid ingesting or experiencing in public life?

All right then, I learn that my favorite band is coming out with a new album. Can I download the album for free, having never been exposed to it? Nothing I've argued here allows for that. What's justified by this argument is downloading music, or getting it otherwise, when that music has been worked into the social fabric of your world so that you would need to navigate around it to avoid being hooked by it. I think when that happens, your nagging desire to hear a tune excuses your taking it via internet file sharing sites and playing it to your heart's content.

You could tough it out, find a distraction, trying humming a free tune like Clementine or On Top of Old Smokie, or sing the tune that has you hooked yourself; unless you’re an uncommonly good singer, I think all those efforts will fail. Try singing CCR's Susie Q. yourself. Good luck with that!

Can the folks at Grokster, say, make this argument work for them? I doubt it. We Americans could only tolerate the tobacco litigation's destruction of the dignity of self-determination due to the sympathy we felt for smokers dying from their addiction. We aren't as likely to give music swipers a free ride because they "really needed to hear that tune." Still, it's not as if there's no merit whatsoever to this argument. The music industry does try to hook us, and does try to invade every facet of society to get their infectious tunes into our heads. I don't think it's asking too much to let file sharing go on when it’s music that’s been pushed on the public.

Since many musicians I know would love to have their songs traded on the internet (they don't hold out hope of a big record deal making them rich), music sharing is perhaps the bane only of record companies and megastars. I'm annoyed with the mega rich enough to not care terribly if the public getting its music fix for free robs them of a Bentley or two.