I can't believe this cr*p!!!

[stopthegop]

Thats nothing new.  That organization has been harassing teenagers and small business owners for 50 years.  They're actually harmless and will go away if you simply ignore them.  They'll do stuff like go into a small coffee shop where the radio is playing in the background.  Say, for example, there was tunes by Tom Petty, Chris Issaac, and Pink Floyd playing on the radio...  What'll happen is some awkward lawyer-ish looking dude whose purpose is clearly not to buy coffee will present the owner of the cafe with an "invoice" for "royalties" owed to the "owners" of copyrighted music.  The justification is that the music in question was "used" by the cafe to "make a profit".  The "invoice" will be for some totally absurd sum of money and, of course, the money is sent to these ACAP fl_lcks, not to Tom Petty, Chris Isaac or Roger Waters.  These people are frauds.  They only go after people who are unlikely or unable to fight back.  How much of the money they do collect do you think gets filtered back to "the artists" they claim to represent?  Hint: 4 letter word, it starts with "z" and ends with "o".

[stopthegop]

Kids of 5 and 6 know not to steal else they will get in to trouble, you cant say they dont know right from wrong.

They know not to steal: this is true.  But what they might not know is what actions constitute stealing.  For example, kids are encouraged from a very young age to "use" or to cite the writings of other authors to strengthen their own argument, but with one catch:  they must credit the original author; failure to do so constitutes plaigerism or "stealing".   Kids aren't taught that also have to pay royalties to the original author's media rep and litigation team.  I see very little difference in a teenager's (properly credited) "use" of copyrighted print material such as books or magazine articles, and the personal "use" of ubiquitous music files.   The mere idea that ASCAP et al can regulate and control every single digital copy of any particular file is absurd beyond belief.  Add to that the fact that they can selectively punish people for merely opening a copy of such a file?  How is posessing a sound file any different than posessing a copy of some pdf file that happens to be copyrighted.  They're both 1s and 0s, thats it.   I see no problem with someone listening to "Voodoo Child", as long as they don't claim to have written it themselves.        

[stopthegop]

people miss the point though here if do not hold the copyright you have no right to copy even if for no profit. whoever hold the copyright holds all power to how the song is used.

No they don't.  If they want "full control" then they ought not release such work into the public domain.  There is a such thing in law called "Fair Use".  Its what allows me to read (ie "use") a copyrighted newspaper article and when I'm finished, hand it to my wife to read.  Even though we only paid once, both of us are legally allowed to read it, right?

If an artist want absolute "individual" rights to his work, then he needs to keep it to himself.  Once he releases it into the public domain, especially for commercial purposes, then he (rightly and naturally, imho) loses some of that absolute control.  Copyright is designed to allow the artist to retain some control, but not all.  That would be like itemizing my tax check, telling the Federal Gov't precisely what I wanted my personal tax dollars spent on.  

[stopthegop]

So listening to the radio makes one a thief?

[stopthegop]

Sorry to sound libertarian here but, in a way, there are pure market forces at work here.  Big media companies have managed to postpone their obsolecense through legislation, but that lease on life is going to expire soon.  They are so oblivious to the desires of their customers and have abused their power for so long now, the forces of natural selection are going to do them in right before our eyes.  And with them, I hope, goes DRM, too.