The idea is to limit copyright terms to 14 years, as they originally were, and in exchange allow the content owners to use technological means (I assume enforced by the government) to prevent illegal copying.

Let's leave aside, for the moment, the fact that there is no good solution for using technology to enforce copyright. (For that reason, this discussion is purely academic.) Such a deal would result in a large amount of content being released to the public domain. It's hard for us to imagine would our world would be like with a large pool of digital content in the public domain. But I think it would be very different, and the public domain content would greatly benefit the public. For one thing, it would mean some significant competition for current content producers. It would be harder to make money by producing junky content. So the result would be much better content. The competition would also drive down prices. And the availability of a wealth of public domain content would result in new creative works that are derivative works. 

5:12:17 PM