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I think this thread has been focusing too much on the recording of a piece of music, while it is equally if not more important to discuss the music itself. You guys are only talking about the container and forget about the content! In many ways I agree with Louigi that copyright sucks (because it keeps people that should be creative and invent new wonderful things occupied by suing each other for infringement of copyrights) but I also think it's totally justified to have legal protection of composer's rights in music. If you look close enough, isn't it the bad legal implementation that makes the copyright law vulnerable for abuse, not the idea in itself? If we still want composers in our society we have to accept legal protection of their rights, because composers don't sell recordings of their "products" and they don't make quick money doing concerts (as performing artists may). I'm a big fan of brilliant composers and for that reason I support legal protection of the composer's/author's right to his unique idea, because that is what actually makes it possible for talented people to become composers in the first place, to pursue it as a future profession. The important point here is that a composition is just an idea and as such can not exist on a market without the legal protection that creates its "product status". Compare that to any physical product, like for example a pair of shoes, that has its product status built-in by default. We can't simply undo these modern mass societies and mass markets, created by previous generations, and I personally hope that the governments in different countries will keep up and educate the responsibility to act as a good "gardener" because this modern society really isn't a natural system that in a magical way works for the best of all living. To me the ideas expressed in the Creative Commons movement looks like the way to go, and some countries have already taken steps in that direction. Here in Sweden the leading PRO, Performance Rights Organization, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_rights_organisation, STIM just one month ago made it possible for members to apply differentiated licensing to their work. But unfortunately they implemented this in such a way that if you chose anything else than the old exclusive license (All Rights Protected), for the PRO to look after for you, you automatically miss out on getting compensated as your music is played on public radio. That's lame... but it is only 2k9 yet, the future can be changed. Greetings from Sweden Per Boysen www.boysen.se www.perboysen.com