And if the collateral holder doesn't want to return said collateral?
And while this may work(1) for a theatre-model (where the consumptive act can be funneled into a tightly-controlled venue (which is something I already posted about a few day ago, so I won't repeat that but what is necessary)), how is any mechanically reproduced media to be distributed to individuals? That is to say, DVD and Blu-ray and such media, electronic books for sure, and, possibly, physical ones as well, and any and, essentially all, material delivered to the individual for (relatively) private consumption.
(1)[And even then what of 'media laundering'? It may be illegal for a third party to interfere in a contract by, say, bribing the contract signer to break said contract and distribute an copy of the media in violation of contract, but, say, if one or the other party simply leaves it in the middle of the street and someone unassociated with any of the involved parties picks it up, they could then distribute their own copies of said media at will, legally.]
Under such a system, where does the contract into play? For example, your posts in this conversation, which are conveniently protected by copyright law as it stands now from being appropriated by myself, or any other reader, to use in whatever fashion we please. Should we have begun negotiating these posts before we knew what we were negotiating about?
> The two parties willingly choose a court to fall back on if their contract needs arbitration.
But, again, what does a decision one or more parties are not 'compelled' to follow matter? There are only two alternatives: either everyone agrees that they can't be held to account because they refuse on some kind of intellectual/moral/ethical grounds, in which case, the only consequence to being a bad actor is the likelihood of reduced future business with the offended entity (and even that is not assured, based on the state of the market, localized monopolies, power relations, etc), or it devolves into a shotgun wedding.
> The reason why copyright law has been perverted
From Tsarist Russia to the Act of Anne in Britain, copyright began as state censorship, so arguing for some 'golden age' (other than the vaguest wording in the U. S. constitution) is to ignore history.