I find it strange that there is not more rage about this.

I have been boycotting the farsical music industry for a decade, because they see fit to press rights like this at all. I have always thought a lot about the ownership of ideas; it is why I use Linux, for example, and a strong reason why I prefer old books. The music industry has been quietly ratcheting up the concept of their 'rights' for decades, now. These sham court cases are the spearpoint of a much *much* larger effort to come.

It is with no shortage of anger that I point out that the quality of music has plummeted, even as this so called 'right' has been strengthened. It has been easy for me not to buy music. It's all a lot of garbage! I hear plenty of it on the radio anyway---and when I hear autotuned voices I want to Sue somebody. I know very well that the world is brimming with talent. The irony of having slackers who cant sing foisted on me over the airwaves sticks in my craw something fierce. That cabal of favoritism is all that we defend when defending copyright today.

Our fair use rights are under attack. Copyright, as established by the US Constitution, is being corrupted at every opportunity by those businesses which accrue ownership of copyrighted works. As we sit here, the ACTA treaty is being pushed through the UN, in an bid to foist our punitive system onto all the nations of the earth. It is sure to succeed. It has been in the works a long time right now.

There is no debate of this where we can hear it. There is no thinking about it. Do you realize that by using certain modern idioms in written speech, you expose yourself to lawsuits akin to the abortions of justice mentioned above? Do you know that by singing the song that is stuck in your head you can be sued? How many of you realize that one of the main ways that Youtube videos are challenged is because there is music playing in the background? Has anyone noticed the quiet profusion of 'censor-fuzz' over innocuous items in the background of Television programs?

This is an assault on the rights of free speech. This assault is global in scope. This is the fight of the times to come, and everyone here will be called to one side or the other. Our government has swallowed the pill; they have assented to outlawing or crippling any technology which is capable of making copies. But guess what? Your capacity to remember things falls into this wicket as well. Someone else OWNS MANY OF YOUR THOUGHTS RIGHT NOW. Or so they think. By pressing these rights so selectively, they gain an arbitrary ability to strike whoever becomes a 'nuisance'.

So, is it ethical to copy music? Hell yes it is. You are under assault. Fight back.

Lucky for me, they have nothing worth copying as far as I'm concerned. And thanks to Pandora, I never want for good tunes, anyway. Things like the copyrights on the US codes are a trifle more problematic, ethically speaking. And why does nobody seem to worry out loud that E-books will be subjected to this type of control and enforcement?

Copyright is a means of suppressing free speech. That is it's main use in our day. Music is a sideshow, but it is emblematic of a scarier problem. The Thought Monopolies already own you, and everything you'd care to know.