[taproot]

I think we agree on a few of those points, #4 however, worries me dearly. Did you even read it?

    But even if all of this were not so, even if artists were indeed suffering (which they aren’t, but parasitic middlemen are), copyright would still need to be scaled back. It is now infringing on fundamental rights, and as a European citizen, I’m not prepared to give up those citizens’ rights for a multinational corporation to boost their profit.

    In the 21st century, the Internet IS speech, IS assembly, IS association and IS the press.

    If a corporation can’t sustain a business without having these rights limited, then that corporation deserves to go out of business. The sooner the better.

And in regards to this:

> so it's very hard to say whether the music industry profits grew despite piracy, because of piracy, or independent of piracy.

This has been covered countless times, piracy, has a huge, and known, positive effect on sales to music and movies.

http://torrentfreak.com/why-most-artists-profit-from-piracy/ http://torrentfreak.com/file-sharers-buy-more-movies-121018/ http://torrentfreak.com/file-sharers-buy-30-more-music-than-...

In fact, some studios have been accused of leaking their albums early over P2P to drum up interest. (good luck proving it) http://www.scribd.com/doc/93891327/Hammond-File-Sharing-Leak

Further to that, try to keep in mind that most of an artists revenue does not come from music sales. http://torrentfreak.com/music-sales-are-just-6-of-average-mu...

[stch2]

You're right, I actually agree with #4 more than my previous post will admit. But I believe the unrestricted level of piracy the OP suggests should be allowed swings the pendulum too far in the opposite direction.

[taproot]

Indeed, IP in general is something I personally disagree with whole heartedly and completely; however, sadly, I do understand the implications and realities we face which make such a stance unworkable.

It should be noted, the only reason people are suggesting such extremes is due to the other end pushing first and foremost. Life + 50 is an absurd amount of time to keep something locked up under copyright/patent and lengthening or strengthening such laws is going counter to everything else in an age where information [in general, media included] is being made increasingly available and accessible in much larger quantities year on year.

One would assume, with all other things considered, that lengthy IP laws would be undergoing contraction opposed to expansion. They only need to be long enough to foster innovation and creation, anything more and they become counter productive and detrimental to society at large.