I have found the thread absolutely fascinating. I don't think that we have copyright police in England. We do have laws on photocopying. My daughter sings in a choir and most of the music has been photocopied because of the high cost of buying 20 or 30 copies of a piece of music. To build up a decent repetoire would be impossible on the school's budget. My daughter gets a lot of enjoyment from singing, it adds to her musical education. My son works in a shop who's main source of income is from the sale of sheet music of all varities. He complains about the people who come in and buy a piece of music then photocopy it for band/choir etc. If everybody did this he says he would be out of a job.

Songwriters, composers, artists have to earn a living in the same way as the rest of us - by selling our labour. As with most other industries the rich exploit the rest of us by buying our labour for next to nothing and selling it for as high a price as they can get. Look at the percentage of the selling price of sheet music or recording that the the writer of a song gets. Always assuming that he/she wasn't cheated out of the rights for a one off pittance payment.

"We're not too poor the corn to grow, but too poor the bread to eat".

Melodeon