A couple of questions for the group for which I would like your thoughts:

1. What legitimate reason have the powers that be lengthened copyright protection (twice) from the original 20 yrs. to now 75 yrs?(don't quote me on the years, it doesn't really matter if the numbers are accurate)

2. If I have music on cassette that I bought before CD's were available, do I have a legal right to download songs from that cassette?

3. If the answer to 2. is yes, then a viable reason for sharing copyrighted content is to allow folks to upgrade the quality of their existing library.

4. How am I to fully evaluate music for purchase if:
a) I can get a whopping 30 secs from any Amazon.com type site
b) If I open a CD I can't return it except for another copy of the same CD (at most music stores)
c) ClearChannel and other conglomerate corporations control all the broadcast media and limit my opportunity to hear new and different music
d) Listen.com and the like has an astronomically small fraction of actual music and most of it is not downloadable (try it, I did.)
e) Musicmatch et.al. doesn't let you identify a particular song to listen to (if it's not in their approved library)
f) Labelling of music doesn't provide much insight into its content or quality
g) Listening to entire records in music stores on well-used and often icky (technical term) headphones isn't a particularly viable or pleasant experience and is often limited to the cd's of the store's choosing

5. Isn't it interesting that given all of the above, I'm expected to worry about the copyright holders?

6. I would like punitive damages for all the crappy a** songs I now OWN a license to, having bought full cd's, only to find I despise most of the songs on it. The RIAA owes me some money or some quality music (I have the $10,000 worth of CD's to prove it.)

Food for thought. Comments welcome (including from Leeware whose knowledge is clearly very strong.)