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