The SunnComm Slashdot discussion includes this comment that touches upon something I’ve been wondering about for a while. The comment itself has some inaccuracies, but there is this thought:

Re:Did Jacobs just say something really stupid? (Score:5, Insightful)

by macdaddy357 (582412) on Thursday October 09, @07:52PM (#7178041)

He doesn’t understand the implications of what he said at all. If I purchase a CD, it is my personal property. I have the absolute right to do with it as I see fit. Alex Halderman of Princeton University is only showing us how to take back our rights as property owners. Jacobs, and all the a-holes at Sunncomm are the ones trying to deny us our rights. They are the crooks here. They claim that they are protecting “intellectual property.” That term is a highly offensive misnomer. Copyright is a temporary loan from the public domain, not property. [Ed: emphasis added]

When you boil it all down, Sunncomm is dancing, but the RIAA are calling the tune. It is the RIAA and affiliated labels who need to be boycotted until they reform, or perish. [dontbuycds.org] Sunncomm will die on their own. Sunncomm alredy lost Sound Choice Karaoke as a customer. Using the previous DRM scheme, Mediacloq, caused a backlash that really hurt them, and karaoke is a niche market.

OK — the idea that you can do anything with a CD is clearly incorrect, from the DMCA point of view if nothing else. But the idea that copyright is a temporary loan from the public domain suggests that there might be some merit in reframing copyright as something that the creator holds in trust for the public. I don’t know enough law to know if this has been suggested formally in the past, but it seems like it could be used to reframe some of the issue, particularly by suggesting that the caretaker of the trust carries certain positive obligations in exchange for the income received from managing the trust. I am not anywhere near knowlegeable enough about the law of trusts to know if there’s anything worth pursuing, but it’s something I would like to know more about.