As the battle over intellectual property shapes up as one of the most important of the 21st century, classical music aficionados are increasingly finding it difficult to access classic recordings. “Now that the boom years of the compact disc are over, classical music discs often don’t make back their costs. No matter that the discs contain work by some of the century’s great artists – often in live performances never recorded in the studio. Their appeal is often so specialized that purchasers are more likely to find them on specialized international Web sites than in Tower Records.” But those recordings still belong to someone, and that someone has to be paid if someone else wants to listen, and that puts everyone in a difficult position.