About copying your own music onto an iPod:
You can and it'd done a lot I hear, but it's not clearly legal even though iTunes automates this for you, making it easy to do. From what I've read, it's commonly done but still not clearly legal.
I think you need to read up on copyright. Remember, copyright for you doesn't automatically mean copy-ban for everybody else. Not even close. There are a large number of situations where I am allowed to copy your copyrighted work either for personal perusal or even for profit.
When it comes to copying music for my personal use, this is clearly legal according to the AHRA. Again, we are not talking about copying a CD you don't own, only about copying a CD you do in fact own, and this is 100% legal. In fact (as far as I understand the AHRA) since I own a DVD recorder and I purchase blank CD and DVD media, I am paying the recording industry money for the right to copy the work of copyright owners they represent.
If someone publishes a book of public domain drawings that someone collected over the years. Someone else can't just copy the book and publish it themselves -- even though the content is all public domain.
Correct, I can not copy that book as is, but I can copy any individual part of it and make it part of my derived work since any part that I am copying is public domain. With the DMCA, I can not do this with a DVD that is copy protected. This is just one of the way the DMCA is counter to all previous law and legal practice in the US.
Now technically, my quoting of your material above is a copyright violation
Again, this is covered under copyright legislation and under legal practice. You
are allowed to quote parts of my work as illustration. So, yes, my words are copyrighted by me, but that does not mean that you are not allowed to copy them. This is covered, for example, in provisions giving book and movie critics the right to quote from the works they are critiquing. Again, fully legal after judicial practice in the US. Interestingly, in these cases it is even legal to copy parts of my copyrighted work and re-publish it
for profit. The New York times obviously makes a profit on their book reviews, and they are allowed to quote from the books they review, within reason. In other words, The New York Times makes money on copying other peoples copyrighted work. Fully legal.
Basic jist is that if somebody had to do work to create something, it's not moral, and probably not legal to get the benefit of that work as a freebie through copying unless the person who did the work gives permission
Please read what I am writing. Please. I have never advocated that it is, or should be, legal to copy work you do not already own. I am
only talking about making copies of work you have already purchased the right to peruse. When I purchase a DVD it doesn't mean that I own the movie, but it
does give me the right to view that movie an unlimited number of times.
Also, as shown above, when you say that I am not allowed to benefit from copyrighted material for free or to financially benefit from parts of, or the entire copyrighted material, this is, with strict limits, not correct. In fact, there are a number of ways I can copy parts, or even
the entire part of your copyrighted work either for fun or even for profit legally in the US. I have mentioned New York times quoting books they are reviewing, a practice on solid legal footing. Also, I could take parts of, or the entire movie or music and create a derivative work including the entire soundtrack, if I did so in a way that parodied the original work. Fully legal.
So, yes, you have the copyright to any work you produce, but that
does not mean that I can not copy it for a number of different purposes without your permission. Parodi. Review. For private use. All on solid legal footing within the US judicial system.
You can read more about some of the areas where copyright does not prohibit copying or replication here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright#Fair_use_and_fair_dealing
