Sales of recorded music are down for the fourth straight year. It seems fewer and fewer people are willing to invest hard-earned money on music CDs. Has the music gotten worse? Are people finally getting sick of pop?

Nope. In fact, pop music is more pop and ubiquitous than ever. According to Megan McArdle, writing in the May 1, 2010 Kindle issue of The Atlantic, the reason music sales continue to dive is because music theft is more rampant than ever.

Generation X types have come to expect that, if they can get their music for free, they should be able to - even if it's not legal. Good software is readily at hand, and all it takes is a few friends willing to swap and share. Modern-day pirates are raiding the music industry to a degree that would have made Black Beard smile, and there seems to be very little anyone can do about it.

Interesting. For years parents have complained about pop music that it undermines traditional values and urges kids to follow their passions more than sound reason. The latest generation of pop music-lovers, just like their parents, is taking their idols up on the exhortation, and are stealing them blind, just because they can.

Doutbless today's music pirates will say, "Hey, it's just a little transgression." Like Lot, turning away from God's clear command to "just a little" village, simply because he could. And as Lot's compromise led to more compromise and sin, a generation that can justify theft at the everyday level of acquiring music will learn to justify every other transgression as nothing more than what they're due.

T. M. Moore