Seems to me that now we're debating whether publishers have the right to defend music for which they have 'purchased' copyright and paid to produce. There's never really been any real issue over that in my view. Regardless of how immorally or unfairly they might have procured that copyright in the first place, the law in most countries will favour them as the owner of the copyright, so long as they can afford the court case.
I thought the debate was about individuals posting a 'home-made' version of a piece of music for the general interest of other people. Not music which has been professionally reproduced and carries some implicit guarantee of being a correct and complete copy of an original and additionally, is not being sold for profit. This, to me, is an important distinction.
Every time I build something in my workshop corporations might say I stole the idea from their book of plans, if they could police it. Whenever my wife 'concocts' a recipe in the kitchen, she has probably breached a zillion copyrights under this sort of absurd thinking. And what about all those budget clothes we all love to buy. Wouldn't that be a case of the big corporations that contract to have this stuff made, ripping off the original designer?
In most countries the police can now fine a motorist seen using a mobile phone. One might wonder why, when there are so many other equally dangerous distractions in a car, which we can apparently utilise freely whilst driving. (unless you actually hit something, of course) Take your
radio/CD player for example. Mine is pretty ordinary but is far more distracting to use than my mobile phone. Well, I think it's only because they can access the telephone records and prove it. One day, they may be able to prove you were fiddling with your stereo too and that would have been made possible because you would be paying Sony, or some other mega corporation for the right listen to whatever trash the spin doctors are feeding you and that 'airtime' would be electronically monitored and logged, just like your mobile phone. The technology for stuff like that is really just around the corner.
One could debate these issues for ever as the legal arguments become more absurd by the day, but the bottom line remains the same. Nobody who counts cares how silly we think they are, so long as they are winning in the courts.