Well said, and for a lot more than the stuff I highlighted.

But here's the problem: there are a lot of different perspectives on copyright, but the whole debate has been hijacked to create an artificial artist vs. pirate dichotomy.

Personally, I believe that "economic incentive" is the main purpose of copyright (though I believe that it is an American perspective and it may not reflect the purpose of copyright law in all countries). I also believe in the "social good" argument, and want to find some balance between those two perspectives. Alas, what we have at the moment is not a balance. Retroactive copyright extensions diminishes the idea of economic incentives. Something which did not exist at the time is not an incentive to create, and long term copyrights actually create a disincentive to create new material. (Actually, I find it quite disgusting that people can live off the proceeds of a few months work for their entire life from a combination of luck and good marketing.)

Alas, when I look at things like BitTorrent I see stuff that has been produced in the recent past and sometimes hasn't even been released to the public by the publisher. So going after people who use BitTorrent for piracy is entirely legitimate from my perspective.

On second thought, it should be completely legitimate even if the work is fifty years old. After all, we should fight to change bad laws rather than simply violate them. And if you choose to violate them in an act of civil disobedience, you should be prepared to face the consequences and use the judicial process as a stage to argue your points.