Continuing Questions on Ownership

Here's a great CBC radio 3 podcast on the topic of "Who Owns Music?"



In it, there are three suggested 'owners'; the labels, the artists, and the listeners. There is also a question of whether or not ownership is transferred from producer to consumer at the time of purchase.

The final comment that ownership is a legal matter while sharing is for everyone is interesting. There's no doubt that piracy in no way benefits the producer, but 'sharing' is still more inclusive than 'ownership'. I'm not defending piracy, but the notion of owning something that we cannot actually hold is kind of strange, despite the fact that we can still interact with it and engage with it.

My questions are then, who do you think owns music? Do you agree that ownership is a legal matter while everyone should be able to share? How do you feel about the ownership of physically intangible digital media?