1. The validity of copyright laws
2. The exploitation of artists

The second does not derive from the first.

Blah blah blah

Great argument.
I didn’t say copyright law should be reformed because it’s used to exploit people (though if you don’t think that’s a good reason to change legislature, you’ve got something very wrong with you), I said that these lobby groups have skewed it in favour of their own interests rather than the interests of everybody else. There’s something wrong with that.

The fact that some companies in the field are somewhat exploitative of artists and creatives (and I suspect I have more first hand experience of such practices than you) has nothing to do with the validity or otherwise of the various copyrights which apply.

Copyrights are meant to balance the opportunity of the creator to make money off their work, and the publics interest to see everything in the public domain. Right now, this balance is fully manipulated by massive lobbying groups like the RIAA (and the RIANZ in Godzone) who make far more off the artists they “help” than the artists will ever see of their own money. Artists are ripped off, the public is ripped off and some more big businesses (like Sony, EMI, Universal and Warner) make more money than they’d ever need by taking advantage of this.

What are current copyright periods? Kind of hard to agree to “The term of copyright protection should be reduced.” without knowing what it is to start with or agreeing what a fair period is. There has to be some balance between the public domain and the abilty of the artist/author/inventor to make some money from their effort.

I also disagree with “most of our shared culture and knowledge is locked away behind copyright and technical restrictions.” Unless it’s re-worded as “most of our shared culture and knowledge requires payment to access”.

I’m sympathetic to the idea of a robust public domain but lets be honest – most technological advances occur because of the profit motive. Take away the ability for individuals or companies to profit from their effort and they wont make the effort. Imagine a world without books, music, medicine, technology. It’s called North Korea.

The internet has a pernicious effect in that we expect to get information for free now. Why? Creating that information is someones day job.