19th century is Post Copyright legislation.

I think if you're forced to listen to a song that causes you mental distress by the writer of said song without having the choice to you know... turn off the song, then yes. You do get to sue them for mental distress.

Most of them were called bards, played only the popular songs everyone knew for the past 100 years or so, didn't create anything new, and often begged for dinner and slept in the street.

I only got two lines of cursing on my display. I demand my money back.

... I've made custom ribbons because I was having trouble finding some options I used frequently. I didn't know you used to be able to make custom menus...

well... let's see what happens at the end of summer... before we you know... talk about it as if it is already past.

If I had mod points...

I actually lived in a new apartment building for a while. I moved in on the first day it was available to move in. They actually wired the apartments specifically for internet. Fiber to each apartment, nice switch panel that allowed a router in one room to provide internet to the entire apt etc. It was pretty nice. I moved... mostly because it was in New Jersey and living in Manhattan is so much cooler.

I think the people they hire to run the phone lines are paid for minutes on the phone.

Just to throw a couple contrary examples out there

I heard on a radio interview with someone from Blink-182 that they originally thought "Adam's Song" was a bad song and were surprised it ended up being a #2 on the US Modern Rock Charts. In an environment were you only get to release "hits" it probably wouldn't have been released.

I personally like every song on "Let it Ride" by Mighty Mighty Bosstones, my favorite song on that disk is also not even one that got a video or I have ever heard played in another other place.

Not every non-hit song is crap. And variety is good. Even if you don't love every song on a disk by an artist you like, you probably do like one or two that never would have made it onto the radio. I'm kindof sad the venue to try out songs you aren't as comfortable with is sortof going away. I feel like I'm going to miss out on alot of music I might have enjoyed.

If a musician is not more beneficial to society than a plumber or bus driver then we don't. However if society does highly value them then it should be possible.

I can't tell if you're arguing against or in favor of his point. Your tone is against, but if the only music you have available is locally produced you would have a vastly LESS diverse pool of music to listen to. Where you are and what you experience has a lot of relevance to the whatever you produce. If everyone produced only locally and locally is all that is available then all of it will be similar.

In another example... northern climes don't produce pineapples very well. And I love me some pineapple. Southern drawl in music is pretty exclusively grown in the south... but has an awesome sound to it that I as someone living in the north can really appreciate. I'd be kindof sad to miss out on it.

What corporation funds research, publishes papers, and DOESN'T patent the results? That's kindof the point... businesses don't do things out of the goodness of their hearts.

2 characters, but who bothers to count past 5 anyway?

I think it completely depends on which browser you started coding against. If you do your main testing against IE it might look wrong in Firefox until you work out the differences. If you started in Firefox IE will look weird.