OWN'D!
Intellectual property rights is a difficult issue that can go to the extremes. Sometimes people can carry it too far and deem one thing someone's property when theres no reason that it should be. This was even shown in the Bound By Law book in the case where Terry Gilliam used various images for his Monty Python series. Twenty years after one of his movies was put out he was forced to pay for using a copied image of a Xerox of Da Vinci's "Last Supper". (Page 20). I think that would be a perfect example of going too far. Another good example of this that exists in the music industry: The Danger Mouse case in which it was the record labels and not the individual artists who were breathing down Danger Mouse's neck for use of Jay Z's work (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastard_pop). I think that if an individual artist dosn't seem to have an issue with another person using their creations (note THEIR creations and not the record labels who were not involved in the creative process at all) then there shouldn't be an issue. This issue was discussed in the White Stripes case which is shown in the second Creative Commons video. In this case an individual added bass tracks to the White Strips copyrighted material and asked Jack White personally if he could put the completed works on the internet. The creative commons video called it avoiding the intermediaries which I think is a very important issue.
Another case of property rights going to far is the case of encrypted DVD's. Somehow somewhere down the line it became illegal to create software to read encrypted DVD's so that you could play non region DVD's or possibly even copy them. While I am not advocating this, it seems funny how this is illegal but it is not illegal for people to publish how-to's or instructionals on how to create high explosives or other hazardous activites. These instructionals are protected under free speech but someone who wants to play a DVD they are out of luck. The Reason magazine article discusses this and comes to the same conclusion as I have that there is no logical explanation for this. (Walker 4).
On the other hand there can be times when these rights do not go far enough and an artist's work is exploited for someone else's personal benefit. I can see where it would be harmful if someone was completely stealing another's works and making much more profits than the original person was. If you think about it, this would be like a retailer stealing semi-trucks full of goods and selling them in their stores instead of purchasing them from manufacturers.
For me personally the abundance of MP3 blogs and other forms of media which could theoretically aid in my avoidance of purchasing music has no effect on me. I remember when I first got a job I never purchased CD's because I thought they were too expensive. I think from the years from when i was 14-17 I purchased about 4 CD's. When high school ended I began downloading music and using amazon.com and other forms of music streaming. Around this time my CD collection skyrocketed as my music interest began to peak and now I could tell whether i was wasting my money or not.
As a sidenote I nearly split my sides in laughter when Creative Commons was discussing their copywrite licenses in that they, "wrote these licenses so that lawyers and courts could read them, then we translated them into a language you can read, and then we translated them into a language that computers can read".