> In my opinion, the whole copyright/royalty system is a huge > scam slanted towards the big record labels.
One little side point which I think I mentioned once before here (and it is only an aside, I realise the points people are making about ASCAP / BMI / RIAA favouring the majors are generally correct) is that even the large records companies / commercial artists don't always get what they should out of the deal, I seem to remember several years ago U2 starting legal proceedings to try and stop BMI / Phonogram (I think, can't remember the specifics, just the drift!) collecting money on their behalf as they reckoned they were only seeing a fraction of what they should - most of the money collected was being hoovered up by the organisation itself.
