PHILADELPHIA- There’s a revolution afoot, and if you’re in doubt, go check out a typical college dorm. Almost all U.S. colleges and universities are now wired for high-speed Internet access, which means that students can download music files in a matter of seconds (if they couldn’t already at home)..

So here’s a news flash for Big Music: It’s over. We have cut you off, and guess what? We don’t feel the least bit guilty.

Why? Because the overwhelming majority of the artists who fill our hard drives are considerably well off, as are the people and companies who manage them.

But money isn’t all of it. There’s a big difference between stealing a hot dog from a street vendor and downloading an MP3 (a popular format for packaging and sending audio files).

Another reason there’s no chance of us returning to the music stores: making our own CDs is just way too convenient.

The Recording Industry Association of America is, of course, upset.

And the organization’s honchos seem to think that they’re going to legislate their way out of this revolution by gaining access to private customer information held by Internet service providers.

Haven’t these guys heard of Web anonymizers, sites like SilentSurf.com, Anonymizer.com, and dozens more that will likely pop up?

Such sites make anyone’s presence on the Internet virtually ghostlike.

We aren’t revolting against the artists.

We are revolting against the non-artists, the people who take art and make it fit into a Doritos commercial.

For those of us who have the money, supporting the little-known groups remains an important cause.

Our revolution doesn’t threaten the future of music. In fact, we have high hopes for what these changes could bring to our ears.