That's a really good point. I suppose that getting rid of the (insane) statutory damages would make it economically unviable to enforce the law at the individua

That's a really good point. I suppose that getting rid of the (insane) statutory damages would make it economically unviable to enforce the law at the individual level, and you could secure a healthy space beyond publisher's reach in this way. That said, I dislike the kind of law that makes everyone a criminal by default, since opens the entire population to arbitrary enforcement. The other advantage of limiting enforcement action to incorporated entities is that it sidesteps any sticky questions about individual freedom of speech. More importantly, it provides for a commercial adolescence. There's a big gap, after all, between the work of hobbyists and professionals. And publishers have been able to exploit this to the detriment of artists and audiences alike. So I'm in favor of people being able to make commercial use of copyright protected materials without permission or payment - so long as they do so as private individuals. The assumption is that people finding limited commercial success and wanting to carry that further will find corporate entities indispensable. Whether they set up their own, or go into partnership with ones that already exist, they'll need them to grow. These are people who are ready and able to pay for the professionally produced sources they rely on. Indeed, I suspect that people with serious professional ambition will focus on handling these responsibilities in the same way that ambitious undergraduates with an eye on graduate school manage to limit social life for the sake of their studies. It becomes an expected part of going pro. The famously exploitive agreements that artists have suffered under can usually be traced to the absence of a space in which they can freely prove their commercial viability. Creating this space would not only allow more professional artists to develop (especially ones not connected to independent wealth), it would establish a far healthier balance of power between them and the major publishers and distributers that are usually needed to develop one's appeal and audience fully.