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In a lot Socialistic countries especially in the Nordic countries where they have long fed off the fatted calf of the North Sea Oil Reserves (which are now disappearing) they had a lot of these kind of laws to protect (i.e. fatten "artists"). Artists being authors, painters, etc.
The government would buy painters works at some "established - by the art community - price" and actually store these works in air conditioned warehouses. After a while these storage facilities got quite large and numerous.
There was an attempt in this country with the rise of the online used book trade (i.e. Amazon, B&N) to pay authors a fee (or a share) of the price of a used book when it was sold. This was knocked down pretty quickly. One example for not doing it, was the idea of paying Ford each time an old Ford was traded. In this country that is a ridiculous idea, but not so in the EU which is strongly influenced by the Nordic countries.
In America unfortunately, communities are shutting libraries, or curtailing their services and so no one will be willing to pay anyone for lending a book. Still in fairlness I see a limit of some kind as to how many times an eBook can be lent in a given period of time. This limit would be established by looking at the frequency of lending for Pbooks. Say a popular Pbook might be lent 30 times in a year on average (and usually in the first year and only then), then I would think that would be the guide for eBooks. After 30 times, the ebook would be locked down until the next year, and then the counter restarted.
Personally I own 5 old (sometimes very old) (I call them my babies) clunkers. A small helicopter, a small plane, a small fishing trawler, a medium sized houseboat, and a small travel trailer. I don't know how many times these items have been bought and sold.
One item I bought brand new. A truck.
Why the heck does he have so much rolling, floating, and flying stock you might ask.
I make money with the helicopter and plane. The houseboat I live in on a lake and river, and the trawler, I am converting to live in on the sea. The trailer I live in when I know I am going to be traveling to a job for a period of time and it is cheaper than renting. My truck also has a camper cover that I can put on it for that same reason.
The idea of paying the manufacturers each time these old items have been sold and bought is plain stupid.
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