Well, we don't have to think about that counterfactual, because that's the world we already live in. Copyright functionally does not protect the rights of all

Well, we don't have to think about that counterfactual, because that's the world we already live in. Copyright functionally does not protect the rights of all artists. It only protects artists that are large and well-known enough to retain ownership over their work. The vast majority of artists are not that large. The vast majority of publishers know this, and thus they demand ownership up-front as a policy. Any contractual obligations to return ownership at the end of a publishing period will be subverted in a way that most benefits them and harms the author. If copyright were inalienable - i.e. there were legal maximums on how much you could transfer to a publisher at once, or the rights reversion regime were stronger - then maybe I'd be on the other side of this debate. As it stands copyright is just lunch money being given to bullied kids. The IA did not want unlimited distribution[0], they wanted digital first sale. Publishers have been adament that first sale ends where the bits start, and courts have almost unanimously agreed with them. Normalizing Controlled Digital Lending would not do any more "damage" to writers than physical libraries already do. Which, BTW, is not actually damage. Writers absolutely love librarians because they bring more readers into their back catalogue; publishers hate them because they represent a loss of control. Writers and publishers have different business models: a writer makes money when they sell copies of their work, but a publisher makes money when they control that work. So libraries benefit the writers at the expense of publishers. Totally agree with you on AI; the discoverability problems that self-published writers already face are getting worse with the ability to generate "genuine fake[1]" spam books. [0] The National Emergency Library stunt notwithstanding. [1] "Genuine fake" is a term for "counterfeit goods that look and function similarly to the real thing".