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For laws to be effective they need to be accepted by the majority of the population and they need a control point. The people that created the original copyright understood this and that is why they put the control at the point of copy.
It was effective because it was expensive to make copies and the people that were making the copies had money so they could be sued.
The control point has weakened over the years with cheaper copy technology and now with digital copies it has vanished.
People have turned to technology to save them. 'Yes technology protection measures will give us the control back' - Whoops doesn't work.
'OK TPM's will work but we just need tougher laws'. - Sorry still doesn't work. It can't be practically enforced and the general population will never accept draconian measures to protect a dead control point. This is where we are today.
I feel that we have to go back to the original intent when copyright was created and define new rights. For argument sake call them Digital Creative Work Rights. Now we need a new control point.
There isn't a perfect one but the best we have is at the point of sale. That's where taxes are collected, that's where records should be kept. Nobody should be able to sell the work without the owner getting compensated.
There should also be recognition of distribution rights and rights to derivative works but both can't be practically enforced unless there is gross violation.
I really feel the idea of digital "copy" rights need to go away. People are still grasping at the vanishing strands of the copy control point. To maintain the intent of the rights the definition needs to change.
My two cents.
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