"My simple minded beliefs includes that a "creator" has certain rights<br>
to his creation. If he/she wants to share (freely) with the rest of<br>
the world, great. If they think that only people who pay a certain sum<br>
of money can share it, that's their right as well.<br>
<br>
And if the creator wants to assign these rights to someone else (ie.<br>
the RIAA, or whatever) ... well, that's fine as well. After all, it's<br>
their song/artwork to do with as they wish."<br><br>A "creator" has only two natural rights - the right to show or hide his creation<br>from the public and the right to put a name on his creation, attributing his<br>
authorship.<br>As soon as his creation is in the public, any other control he wants to have<br>over his creation gives him too big powers over people, especially today. The<br>author should not have any control over how his creation is used. Such control<br>
is fine within close human relationships when obviously you'd tell your friend or<br>colleague that you want to use his creation in your work or whatever. A person<br>who you do not know should not ask your permission.<br>
And if a person insists it is his "natural right" to control "his" song, I personally<br>think this is a nasty thing to do. There is no such "natural right" and I wouldn't<br>want to listen to such a song as it instantly puts me in a position of a slave to <br>
that great "creator" who can now dictate to me when I can sing a song and what<br>I do with something that is now available to me as part of the world.<br><br>Note that authors never had any such rights until XX century and they were not considered natural<br>
when the USA government decided to give authors that artificial monopoly.<br>Its artificial. And it proved to be not such a good idea after all.<br><br>L.V.<br>