Gregory's Server@ernie back in the early 2000's MP3.com paid for physical CD's, made digital copies available to stream, but only if you could prove via a sophisticated hashing algorithm that you had your own physical copy at your end. The security of the "lending" didn't matter, it was the copying and subsequent distribution.
One has to lobby Congress to change Copyright law. Is Lawrence Lessig writing anything about IA's position?
@dkoneill One gets the feeling that trying to convince legislators of the importance of this would be immensely fraught in part because the advocacy groups are much more established on the copyright-holders’ sides.
I was just thinking about the MP3.com case. The fact that isn’t how copyright law works is wrong; it was clearly an idea ahead of its time.