As a Boalt Hall School of Law student and singer-songwriter, Josh Keesan thinks about law and rock music a lot–often at the same time. Last year he combined his passions on the self-produced record The Law of Rock, Vol. 1, setting lyrics about contributory negligence and promissory estoppel to catchy folk-pop.

When the 24-year-old wants to find new music, he said he usually turns to the Internet. But as a student studying music copyright law, Keesan added that he is conflicted about the phenomenon of online file-sharing.

“I think (illegal file-sharing) is sort of a necessary evil at this point,” Keesan said. “I think (subscription) services like Rhapsody are going to become increasingly prominent as just a way of, ‘I want access to everything new that comes out all the time.’ File-sharing provides a way for that to happen because record labels haven’t provided a way for me to get that.”

Keesan’s songs can be heard on his Web site and MySpace. His biography reads: “While the rest of his Boalt classmates are surfing the Internet and killing time on google chat, Josh is tirelessly working to distill legal doctrine into digestible three-minute musical gems.”

Popularity: 63%