ipod mounting with files owned by root

[david-8uUts6sDVDvs2Lz0fTdYFQ at public.gmane.org (David Kramer)]

(this is on Ubuntu 9.10)
So I was pretty happily using Banshee to sync my music collection with
my ipod, until I hit a show-stopper bug:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=584860
Now I can't use that.

Then I tried Songbird again, only to find they've discontinued iPod
support.  I have no idea who they think their target market is without
this.  Note the page is deceptive.  It says it's not supported anymore
and you can try it and you're on your own, but THE DOWNLOAD BUTTON IS
DISABLED, so you can't.
http://addons.songbirdnest.com/addon/12
Also see
http://blog.songbirdnest.com/2009/08/05/open-sourcing-the-ipod-add-on/

Then I checked out Rhythmbox.  It doesn't have actual syncing, but I am
*theorizing* that if I drag my entire music collection over to it, it
will skip the ones already on there, which is inefficient and wildly
lame, but it doesn't look like they intend on ever supporting real syncing.

Here's my current problem: When I try to drag files from my repository
onto my iPod, I get "Error opening file
'/media/IPOD/iPod_Control/Music/F44/Fine_Young_Cannibals_-_T~LI.mp3':
Permission denied".  Sure enough, all the files in that directory are
owned by root.

$ l /media/IPOD/
total 148
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 16384 1969-12-31 19:00 .
drwxr-xr-x  6 root root  4096 2010-03-22 00:30 ..
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 16384 2009-05-13 07:21 .cache
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 16384 2000-01-01 03:07 Calendars
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 16384 2000-01-01 03:07 Contacts
drwxr-xr-x  9 root root 16384 2009-01-24 18:39 iPod_Control
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root     0 2000-01-01 03:07 .metadata_never_index
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 16384 2009-01-24 15:38 Notes
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 16384 2009-04-22 00:28 Photos
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 16384 2009-01-24 18:34 Recordings
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root 16384 2009-08-24 02:33 .Trash-1000

This is how it's mounted:
$ mount | grep IPOD
/dev/sdc1 on /media/IPOD type vfat
(rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=devkit,uid=1000,gid=1000,shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,flush)
uid/gid 1000 is david, not root.  So..

Podsleuth agrees it's not mounted read/only:
$ podsleuth
iPod Found [/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_3141_5926]
  * Generic Device Properties
    - Block Device:       /dev/sdc1
    - Mount Point:        /media/IPOD
    - Read Only:          False
    - Volume Size:        120 GiB
  * General iPod Properties
    - Serial Number:      8K845WMH2C7
    - Firewire ID:        000A27001394597F
    - Firmware Version:   2.0.1
    - iPod_Control:       /iPod_Control
    - Extra Capabilities: podcast
    - Production Info:    42281 in November, 2008 from factory 8K
  * iPod Model Properties
    - Device Class:       classic
    - Generation:         7
  * Image Types Supported
    - Photos:             True
    - Album Art:          True
    - Chapter Images:     True


1) Why is this happening?

2) Why wasn't it doing this all those months I've been successfully syncing

3) How do I fix it?

Thanks.