While I’m totally onboard with this right-of-musicians-to-play bent, I’m not sure it’s as simple to separate from the right-to-listen as you’re implying. Do you have the right to play a Madonna song in your living room for a few close friends after dinner? What about at a house part in your basement? What about in a small club?

Also, where do you draw the line between the publishing that makes this kind of performance possible (hard to learn to play a song if you can’t get the music for it anywhere), creative remixes that take the raw material of the song as the “score” to “perform”, and simple reproductions of the song for you own pleasure (the commercial feeding tube). Are mixes/curation a creative act deserving of this kind of freedom?

I’m not arguing with the logic of the right to playing music being unassailable, I just think that belief will inevitably draw you to a more radical position with regards to the “rights” of “consumers” in general, especially if you put yourself in a position of empathizing with people who lack traditional technical musical talent and so can’t reproduce songs they like themselves with their voices and bits of wood and metal.