By INDERIA SAUNDERS, Guardian Business Desk

Seventeen-year-old Shammond Smith thinks nothing of loading her new iPod with the latest music, videos and movies available to her courtesy of her home computer. But where many users in North America update their list of favorite songs via their country's Apple iTunes Store, Bahamians — without that legal option — have been downloaded that music from file sharing networks, more often than not illegal ones.

It's likely denied both artists and Apple hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue from this nation of 300,000 alone at the same time further exacerbating concerns about this jurisdiction's respect for international copyright.

Still, the fault — at least in this instance — appears to rest with Apple, itself.

The leading tech company has inadvertently driven an increasing number of Bahamians to that pirating, given the absence of Apple-approved methods for Bahamian residents to download songs or movies onto increasingly popular iPods.

Here's how it works in many other countries, although not here: Each iPod owner is encouraged to register with his country's own iTunes store, something only effected by providing a credit card issued in that market. It allows him or her to access the company's massive database and download songs, usually 99 cents each.

The Bahamas has no such site, likely owing to Apple's determination of market size relative to set up costs. It's also worth noting that Bahamian residents attempting to log onto the U.S. or Canadian library with a Bahamian credit card are rebuffed. They would also have to offer a postal address in either of those foreign markets.

Ironically, Bahamians are able to purchase the iPods and other Apple products locally through an authorized dealer, Customs Computers Ltd.

"They'll have to log onto the U.S. iTunes store first," said one store representative. "If they have a U.S. credit card, then they can log in and get what they want."

Of course, most Bahamians have no such credit line.

Smith is just one of the thousands of Bahamians who are driven to downloading content on the file sharing networks like Aries, Kazaa and many others without copyright permission. That route could possibly undermine police efforts to reduce the level of bootlegging in this country.

"It's a real issue, a million-dollar issue [and] it takes away from what we do in law enforcement," said Michael Moxey, head of the counterfeit division at the Royal Bahamas Police Force. "I think the [iTunes] service should be available for Bahamians [and] measures have to be put in place to make it available, so that people don't have to go downloading illegally.

"It would be in Apple's best interest to make it available in The Bahamas [and] they should be more than happy to say they can offer this service to The Bahamas to dissuade people from doing it."

Moxey argues it would take a lot of education to spread the word that downloading from many of the free file sharing networks for an iPod is illegal, even if done in the privacy of one's home. It was a message he argues law enforcement alone would be unable to deliver.

"Law enforcement, the private and public sector need to work hand in hand to sensitize persons to let them know it's wrong," Moxey told Guardian Business. "Yes we should try and get Apple to extend [the service] here."

There is also another benefit to any Apple decision to allow this country iTunes access and it is one that benefits Bahamian artists. With such a move, Bahamian musicians would also be afforded a national library where people can download local songs from all around the world. Apple would in fact have to pay them for the privilege.