User:JMyles/You can't spell 'copyright' without 'cop'
At their core, the only thing that so-called 'intellectual property' laws actually do is allow us to call the cops on our fans, and that's something no musician wants to do.
It bears repeating: copying is the most fundamental process of the propagation of life in the universe. Whatever else life is, ```life is copying```. Evolution in particular is the result of a long series of inexact copies - remixes, we might say.
It is no surprise that the instinct of power hunger that we all have (yes, you too, and your favorite musician too) produces as one of its outlets the vulgar and odious observation: "hey, if I could get in the middle of the copying process - if I could harness this fundamental process of the universe by inserting myself into the copying mechanism of the human condition - if I could just get a piece of that - I'd be rich."
From DNA to Reuben's Train, beauty propagates through the universe by copying. And from Monsanto to the RIAA, rent-seekers attempt to inhibit this propagation by jamming the blunt instrument of state violence into its machinery.