Laura Kattilakoski
staff writer

You can either pay $1.29 for a new song on iTunes or type the song’s title into a website that will allow you to download the same song for free. Seriously, which sounds more appealing to most teenagers?
Before I get any further, I should just say that I don’t support illegally downloading music. I’m just saying, it’s easier and seems to be the method of choice for high school students. With hundreds of new songs coming out every month, students aren’t likely to want to spend hundreds on new music.
A while ago, I saw an article that claimed that 95 percent of songs were illegal downloads. While this statistic is probably inaccurate considering how impossible it would be to track every song that was illegally shared on the internet, the number is a little shocking.
That’s not to say that the artists would be that much richer if illegal downloading wasn’t a problem. Many teenagers download songs for free that they wouldn’t spend the money to buy. In this way, it may actually be helping new artists to spread their songs to different audiences.