Total editorial / opinion: I just read in the news that an RIAA lawyer is taking the position that ripping CD's constitutes copyright infringement. While I think this argument is hogwash, maybe it will help bring some clarity to the "fair use clause" of copyright law.
It reminded me that during a recent trip to Staples to buy a hard drive, I noticed a diagram explaining to prospective buyers about how many MP3 songs a hard drive could store. I can't remember the exact figures, but at the time I did the math, and one of the hard drive sizes could store hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of mp3s. Talk about industries at odds...
Who do I think will win? Technology of course. If not in the courtroom, then by licensing. My guess is that artists and their customers will get sickened enough by the RIAA to start releasing their works under more permissive licenses, and consumers will reject "all rights reserved" music. I'm not there yet with music, but I certainly check the licenses of the software I use, and if its not at least open source (even proprietary open source), I won't use it. Sure there are legacy exceptions, but those are getting replaced, slowly but surely.