I have a somewhat unusual perspective on this as one with a dual career (musician and scholar). Composers, arrangers, performers, and other musical creators do need the protection afforded by copyright in order to make a living for themselves (for a horror story on how poorly enforced copyright can ruin a person, read a biography of Stephen Foster). On the other hand, copyright restrictions tend to make a lot of source material needed for academic work (musical scores, literary works, etc.) difficult to access legally if one has limited funds.
I'm trying to balance my belief in respect for composers' intellectual property with my belief in the freedom of information. Whenever I come across a new primary source that is in the public domain, I do what I can to make it available to other musicians and scholars through databases like IMSLP or Internet Archive. This becomes complicated when institutions like the Library of Congress hold public domain items hostage by refusing to digitize them (or, in LOC's case, charging exorbitant amounts for digitization). It's difficult to distinguish archivists from racketeers a lot of the time.
I'm trying to balance my belief in respect for composers' intellectual property with my belief in the freedom of information. Whenever I come across a new primary source that is in the public domain, I do what I can to make it available to other musicians and scholars through databases like IMSLP or Internet Archive. This becomes complicated when institutions like the Library of Congress hold public domain items hostage by refusing to digitize them (or, in LOC's case, charging exorbitant amounts for digitization). It's difficult to distinguish archivists from racketeers a lot of the time.