[Henrietta]

"The Constitution clearly meant what we would consider to be patents or useful technologies to encourage innovation. It does not mean that an electronic recording is yours in perpetuity."

As far as patents are concerned, you are correct. However, patents do not protect music; music is protected by copyrights. And you can protect copyrighted material until 50 years after the death of the author.

[Skywalk]

I made a point in another thread about this, I'll repeat it briefly here.

I believe all artists and writers should be protected from plagiarism, which is itself a form of fraud. I think that they should be protected from ALTERATIONS of their work, so that the book or song can be reasonably be believed to be the original intent of the artist(except for satire.)

I do not believe it was the intent of the Founders or the accepted knowledge at the time that you have unlimited control over your art-form even after it is completed.

The RIAA is a cartel, and seeks the power of the State to enforce its cartel status. The artists DO have control over their product, all the way to electronic transfer. No one on P2P systems claims that they are the original artist, nor do they perpetrate fraud(the only ones that do are the RIAA plants that put out altered files), nor do they profit or even sell the files.

The files are simply copied data. I don't believe the artist or the RIAA has the right to control even IT technology with intellectual copyright laws. I don't see how that was their intent.