> Many today disagree with this because they grew up in a digital age where copyright was seen as simply an unnecessary impediment to the otherwise limitless and basically cost-free capacity we all have to reproduce digital products in our modern world and hence an impediment to the social good that would come from widespread sharing of such products for free.

As a creator, I agree with the idea of copyright, but as a consumer, I think you missed the core problem with this statement.

I think most people can agree that enforcing copyright is fine: that is, creators should be compensated for their work, if they so choose to be. They should especially be compensated if anyone else is making money from their work.

Let's pick on the music industry in particular, because they are particularly big abusers and also the ones that messed the whole thing up.

One of the places the music industry went wrong was in micro-enforcing exact means of consumption. If they had it their way, I'd have to buy 3 copies of every song if I wanted to be able to listen in my living room, car, and portable device. Oh, and another 3 copies each every time a new format came out (Vinyl -> Cassette -> CD -> every various DRM form of digital). Further, they tried to restrict which devices you were allowed to use ("this DRM only works on stuff from manufacturer X or Y, not Z and definitely not your home-built custom rig").

This is where they really overstepped, in my opinion. And they did this at the same time that the technology for digital music (MP3) was becoming practical, affordable and mainstream. (As in: fast internet, fast CPUs, affordable storage, and many portable music player products)

So what was the result? What would have been an underground and niche world of piracy suddenly was offering for free something that was significantly better than what you got if you paid. Many people even downloaded stuff that they owned on CD, because it was simpler than ripping it. It's not a stretch to simply skip the step of paying for the CD initially. Instead of building something even better and easier than Napster (and others), they declared war on their customers.

It's really not unlike the current climate of ads vs ad blockers: it's hard to feel bad for the advertisers after their methods serve malware, obnoxious and intrusive ads, auto-playing video, popups, etc. Most people could tolerate banner ads, just as most people would have been fine paying for their music, but they took it a step too far and ruined it for the whole industry.

If the music industry had been okay with format shifting and unrestricted (non-DRM'd) playback, instead just concentrating on ensuring that their paying customers could listen to the music they bought however they wanted, the industry would probably look quite different today. Sure, there would have been some piracy (both causal sharing among friends and for-profit counterfeits), but there always has been.

Instead, they attempted to completely erase piracy and extract every cent they could from their paying customers by controlling everything, and didn't care about the collateral damage they were doing specifically to the people trying to give them money. In fact, they want to go even further and put people in jail over it.

So to me, at least, it's not about free-as-in-beer, I'm happy to pay for content. But once I pay, I want to be able to listen to it in the ways I want. Forcing me to use a specific manufacturer's product to be able to listen to the content is as offensive to me as only allowing me to listen to certain types of music based on the color of my skin.