And this is the sort of thing that I propose doing with copyright for things such as novels and biographies and memoires and essays and so on. That at the very minimum, people should always havea right to share a copy with a friend. It's when governments have to prevent that kind of activity that they have to start intruding into everyone's lives and using harsh punishments. The only way basically to stop people in their private lives from sharing is with a police state, but public commercial activities can be regulated much more easily and much more painlessly. Now, where we should draw these lines depends, I believe, on the kind of work.
Different works serve different purposes for their users.
But there's no reason why we have to elevate simplicity above the practical consequences. We can treat different kinds of works differently. For funtional works I believe that people need very broad freedom, including the freedom to publish modified versions. So everything I am going to say tomorrow about computer software applies to other kinds of functional works in the same way. We don't have to give up these important freedoms to have progress.