This week’s entry is a story about my redemption, but I’m going to need your help.

Remember Napster? For those of you who don’t, it was a free, peer-to-peer music sharing application that allowed users to have access to seemingly endless amounts of music that was stored on the computers of other Napster users throughout the world.

Since Napster users could get digital copies of songs for free, several recording artists and record companies considered Napster’s peer-to-peer sharing to be an infringement upon their right to make money from their music. They took Napster to court and won. Now, we have to pay for all of our music through Amazon, iTunes, Rhapsody and countless other music distribution sites. But for two years, music was free for anyone with a computer.

Why do I bring this up? Because I used Napster to get my mp3 of “If I Had $1,000,000” by the Barenaked Ladies. Yep, the mp3 in my library today was retrieved 12 years ago from Napster.

Think about that for a second. I’ve never purchased this song, and I’ll never need to. The quality will never erode, so there will never be a need to replace it. When I downloaded this song 12 years ago, I didn’t understand the scope of my actions. But now I do: I was stealing. The Barenaked Ladies and its record company never received payment for my listening pleasure and that is wrong.

How can I redeem myself? I could simply purchase the song and that would suffice, but I want to be more than merely sufficient. I want more than one copy to be sold. So, I am introducing “If I had $1,000,000” to you in an attempt to make amends. I’m hoping that you and all of my other readers will enjoy the song enough to purchase a copy of your own. And if that happens, I would help sell more copies of this song than I have purchased for myself.

Is that redemption? I think so.

For more information about me and the guitar lessons that I give in and around Baltimore, visit www.ewguitar.com.