Hi Linda,

I do not think the profit or non-profit status of an organization is relevant to whether people should pay. Every group is organized for some purpose--and if they are using copyrighted material to achieve that purpose, they should pay for that, just like they pay for supplies.

OTOH, I feel that the term of copyrights is ridiculously long. A 20-year term is ample to motivate people to write songs. Maybe the term could be extended in some cases, but for the most part, I would like to see songs enter the public domain 20 years or so after they are published. The current copyright laws a biased toward corporate greed, and as the corporations get richer they lobby for even stronger laws. So I do not think the current law represents a balance between the interests of the composer and the public.