McGrath,

My instinct is to assume that they don't want to encourage people to go copying LPs on to CDs

So who would they be? It's hard because of the differing nature of the technologies. It isn't some conspiracy.

This whole business of material being recorded in ways that rapidly become inaccessible is quite a big thing

I'm not sure. It's an arguement that is often raised, but I'm not convinced. There are certainly some issues, but so much is being archived via the web, that I can't see it.

Who knows where we'll be in 50 years time, but unless I get cancer or get run over by a bus, or whatever, I'll still have equipment that can read html, real audio files, gif and jpeg images etc. then

If I have that, I'd assume that libraries will do too.