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I agree 100%. Your point about not really caring about music gets to the bottom of my argument, which is that much of the furor over P2P filesharing is really about a much larger issue. People want to change the role of and power of corporations in America, but most of the time they won't admit that's what they're after.

Downloading zillions of songs for free is an easy way to stick it to The Man, but it's not exactly a principled approach, and it's not necessarily going to lead to the desired outcome.

Personally my biggest problem with copyright law as it stands is the duration of copyright. The Disney copyright extensions have led to an absurd situation, particularly given the pace of American society, wherein by the time a copyright expires, the value of the copyrighted material has been radically diminished. The vast majority of copyrighted material doesn't even create real revenue for the copyright holders. But they get the copyright for free, with no action required on their part. The material just sits there languishing for decades.

I'm also very purturbed at the chilling effect problem with sampling. As Kimbrew McCleod explains in Freedom of Expression it is now far easier and less expensive to record a full cover of a song than it is to sample two seconds from a song and use it in your recording. There's something really warped going on there. As an aside, McCleod also points out that Big Media has succeeded far less frequently in the courts than in the collective unconscious. They sue quite a bit, but don't win nearly as often as people think. Thus the chilling effect even when the law isn't on their side.

As for the legal status of corporations, many people, including businesspeople, agree with your assertion that we'd all be better off if corporate management were actually held accountable for their individual actions. Individuals are being held to the fire more these days, primarily because Elliot Spitzer is on the warpath, but nailing individuals involved in a collective endeavor is inherently difficult, especially when current law pretty much compels corporations to fight off every lawsuit that comes their way. Even if an individual at the company is a bad seed, the company has to act as if the entire company is being attacked. I don't believe that corporations are inherently evil, but the law certainly prods them to act in an amoral fashion.

The RIAA says music sales are down, more specifically they say sales of the top 100 cd are down and this is DUE TO PIRACY.

Well by Sales the Mean "Items Shipped to Stores" !

So all they Really Mean is Stores Stock Less.

In the US Nielsen Ratings are based on "Individual Sales to Customers" so are these REAL sales down?

"Soundscan recorded 146 million CDs sold in Q1 2003, against 160 million in Q1 2004 - an increase of nearly 10%. Figures for Q2, released this summer are expected to show yet another increase. The RIAA, on the other hand, are claiming a 7% decrease in revenue - but that's purely through managing shipments and returns."

Nope, Sales are up !!!
By this more realistic definition Music Sales are up.

=> Therefore if we are to believe the RIAA but use a more realistic definition of sales then :
FILE SWAPPING HAS INCREASED POPULAR MUSIC SALES.

Here is a Link with the sources http://digital-lifestyles.info/display_page.asp?se ction=distribution&id=1222

People listen to more music than they buy.
The More Music People Listen to, the more they buy.

ADD in the spectacular rise of iTunes and Music Sales are through the roof.

File Sharing promotes music and increases sales.

Artists Win, The RIAA, wins, File Swappers Win, P2P wins - Everyone Wins !!!

It is about controlling the means of distribution.

Here is an Very Rigorous Academic Study of File Sharings Effect on Record Sales.
The Conclusion:"File Sharing Has A Negligable Satistical Effect on Sales".
http://www.p2pnet.net/zero/FileSharing_March2004.p df
Here is A Japanese Study with much the same conclusion.
http://www.iir.hit-u.ac.jp/file/WP05-08tanaka.pdf
So the Lies are exposed, the **AA are just out to keep cartel control, make sure we only watch and buy what they have.
Read How Exhorbitant Liscense Fees for Samples have crippled Modern Music in the excellent fast paced read.
http://kembrew.com/documents/mcleod-freedomofexpre ssion3.pdf
Freedom Of Expression by Kembrew McLeod also details many other ways in which Irresponsible Litigous Intellectual Property stifles research, innovation, cost millions of lives worldwide due to drug patents and holds back the development of important medicines for breast cancer due to human genome patents.

I think that P2P has revitalised Culture and learning, it has made the world a richer place and everyone has benefited from this, leechers, artists and business' alike.

Boing Boing reports that File Sharing has a statistically negligable effect on CD sales.

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/03/24/record_sales_ up_p2p_.html

if you read the serious academic study http://http//www.p2pnet.net/zero/FileSharing_March 2004.pdf (i.e. facts and figures not industry lies and bleating) you see that it CLEARLY demonstrates that filesharing doesn't harm Music Sales
and
for very popular music it may even benefit those sales.

Seriously though how is it any different from Radio Play which also doesn't pay the Record companies but the original composers of the songs not the recording artists.

Radio boosts sales and directs entertainment $ or £ to CD sales.

So does File Sharing.

The only difference is Radio has a sensible compulsory liscensing scheme in place and they **AA have invested heavily in controlling Radio Playlists to exclude non Big-5 Label Music.

In the UK File sharing is widely attributed with revitalising the CD Single market and keeping CD sales high.

If anyone is to blame for poor sales it is likely the lack of a competitive market - without P2P to liven things up the Industry Bosses would have sat on their Monopoloistic Cartel Asses and killed music and their own markets dead.

Monopolistic Cartels ALWAYS lead to stagnation, that is what happened.

C'mon all you piracy is theft trolls, get real, the labels abuse their market leverage to not pay artists, to control artists output, to keep prices artificially high, to restrict the variety of music available.

Do they encourage young bands with funding, resources, college courses, mentoring? NO - they do not plant trees, they just fell timber.

Sharing is naturally intuitively good.
Any industry that wants to be a success in the future will do well to leverage community support.

The nature of publishing is changing - if society can avoid kneejerk cash grabs then maybe the industry of culture flourish.

Here is an excellent text which has many examples of how incumbent industries destroy their very lifeblood in a luddite fashion.
http://kembrew.com/books/
E.G. how exhorbitant liscense fees for tiny samples cripple Modern Music.
It is clear from such that a lot of music hasn't been made and has been diminished by greed.

Filesharing music increases CD sales, it is an organ of publicity just like radio.

Copying things for personal use is "Fair Dealing".
UK Copright Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_ United_Kingdom
Copyright was designed to encourage art.
But It is being abused to clamp down on music, by illegalising the Mashup and Mix and destroying Sample Based Music with exhorbitant Liscense Fees.

For many examples of why Copyright Cartels destroy Creativity read "Freedom of Expression" for Free http://kembrew.com/books/ - an excellent read that shows how Intellectual Property Laws are harming Progress and the Value it Creates.

Clamping down on the distribution of culture within a society will cause the well to dry up.
Do the Major Labels nuture talent? Do they provide music Eduation? No they steal Britain's Greatest Resource, tie it up with legal, and milk it dry, giving nothing back.

The Major Labels act as a Monopolistic Cartel, fixing CD prices, forcing artists into low paying contracts where they have no control over what they make and what it is used for.

Suing people is just a money grab, it has netted the American RIAA $1,000,000 so far and now the greed is spreading.

Sharing things is morally and ethically good, it enriches society and in this case increases the size of the music market.
Want to Protect your Intellectual Property from Unliscenced Commercial Exploitation and Want it to be Used by Other Artists - Use A Creative Commons Liscense.
http://creativecommons.org/

The Majors are set against it because they do not wish to relinquish control, their bloated business practices wouldn't survive one minute in a free market.

Here is a translation of a recent French case where the judge saw sense and let the Guy off.
http://www.audionautes.net/blog/index.php?2005/03/ 11/23-movies-downloading-judged-legal-in-france

Peer to peer is the intended architecture of the Internet, Client Server is a hangover from when Bandwidth and storage was expensive - if these fools have their way the internet will break.

The European Union Copyright Directive (EU DCMA) has removed many of our "fair dealing" rights by the backdoor of DRM.

The UK Phony Society's recent press release eagerly parroted by the press are all spin how can they possibly sue 8 year old children for downloading things - They Can't They Are Lying and Bullying People into Coughing Up money they may have used to see bands or buy music.

No really, IP was always supposed to be a limited concession to encourage publishing of art and inventions.
Things that would be in the public domain have had the length of their copyright extended, rewriting the 'contract' after the agreed exclusivity benefits have been enjoyed.
Patents are in a similar position not because of extension but the fact that with more rapid progress after that after the 20 years of exclusiviry they can be irrelevant.
There are a whole raft of inventions that cannot be made because it uneconomic to liscense all the technologies involved and art that cannot be made because either rights will not be granted or are too expensive. Documentaries and Modern music most obviously suffer a lot from this because they directly sample things. Clasical composers though have run afoul of such things as they sample melodies to compose their works and Bebop and Jazz with its standards probably would be unable to evolve in todays aggressive climate.
Even worse than cripling the evolution of human culture Intellectual Property inhibits research into medicines that could save millions due to having to liscense many different patented genes - to do basic research into breast and other cancers. These Genes were not 'invented' just sequenced - imagine Newton patenting Gravity and you see how wrong this is. It is not a cost of recouping research costs, it is more akin to 'cyber-squatting' the human genome.
Intellectual Property impedes progress, it inhibits the economy, it is not the free market it is the creation of monopolies with incredible penalties associated with those guilty of copyright infringement.
Monopolies are a bad thing for consumers, Government enforced Monopolies are worse.
P.S. I stole all these ideas from others, even the ones I believed were original are heavily derived from preexisting thought.
But especial theft thanks goes to Freedom of Expression be Kembrew McCloud http://kembrew.com/books/ which is very readable has well documented examples of all the above and is available for money or for free.

Just be sure that your trademarks don't infringe on someone else's freedom of expression!