Music copyright query

Here's a question I suspect my reading list might not know the answer to, but might know someone who does; so please point your friends to it if you think they could help. (I'm thinking particularly of ewtikins, who's a music person, and livredor, who knows lots of people.)

It's well known (as in: all over Wikipedia and elsewhere on the Web) that copyright on sound recordings in UK law currently lasts fifty years—a fact that's caused record companies nervousness as the back catalogue of acts like the Beatles draws towards the end of its term, and that has caused artistes like Sir Cliff Richard and Dame Vera Lynn, whose early hits are now out of copyright, to campaign for a change to the law.

My question is: what is the status of old music reissued on CD, such as this one I have here of music recorded between 1937 and 1947? The CD is labelled ℗ 2004 (and © 2004). This article suggests digital remastering "establishes a new term of property right", but there's nothing on the CD's packaging (or on the record label's website) to indicate that it's been remastered. (Indeed, both the CD and its cover are plastered with "MONO" labels to make sure no one buys it under false expectations.)

Moreover, record companies are known for trying to enforce their rights beyond the limit of the law, trying to assert that promo records issued by them remain their property and cannot be sold on secondhand, a claim the EFF say is against USAn law. (And indeed in this country, it has not stopped, for instance, the BBC World Service from holding a yearly discarded stock sale, featuring numerous promo CDs.)

So, then, my question is whether the copyright marks on this CD hold weight, or are a result of the record company effectively trying to do a rights landgrab; or to put in in words or two syllables or less, can I copy this CD?

Anybody want to help me practise my German?

As I posted a little while ago, I'm teaching myself German. I got myself a book, and am slowly ploughing through it on my own. The idea was to use the book to practise my reading (and to a small extent, writing and listening), and practise my writing, speaking and listening with aviva_m. Only it's not worked out that way: I've done hardly any speaking, and even less listening, with her. Part of the problem is that we've always got other things to talk about, part of the problem is that at present I only have a vocabulary of about five hundred words, and she doesn't of course know what they are (or didn't before I sent them to her the other day).

The problem with that is that of course it results in me being good at reading German slowly, but completely unable to keep up with German spoken at natural speed.

So (just on the off-chance), is there anyone here who would like to talk with me in (very simple) German, slowly, on a frequent basis (several times a week, if only for a short while each time), to help me improve my spoken and parsed-speech German?