When the various copyright acts were passed, the understanding was
that information was a commodity and that the privileged industries
should be extended protection under law for their products. As mankind
retreated to an increasingly cerebral existence, however, a growing
minority became aware that information was the correct
superset. Problems were manifest as to who had the rights to
content. As a photographer, my digital captures of photonic patterns
were labeled as belonging to me. If I took a picture of a copyrighted
mural, however, then such content was the property of the artist, and
so on. Such infringements could not be allowed to undermine commerce
or the livelyhood of its stakeholders, especially when technology
could be put to the problem. Murals were painted with tainted ink and
cameras fitted with such filters whereby copyrightted materials would
develop as a wall of black soluble only with a suitable deposit of
coin and terms to the pay wall. As agents scrambled to secure their
rights, store windows and entire facades of buildings took form from
materials that would not yield their visage to legal photography.
Soon, leaving the domicile one was bound by ordinance to don reality
augmentation glasses which would allow only that which was permitted
to be seen.  The eye being an optical instrument, why should it be
granted special privilege? Humans wandered around a world of black
ghosts, forms of darkness pierced with flashing colors of published
advertisements.  When the U.S. Supreme Court held the copyright of
one's face and figure constitutional, other nations followed suit,
completing the ghost world.  People saw only the faces of those close
to them, those for whom by familiarity or obligation they were
persuaded to drop copyright protection, until all became a sea of
darkness as intrusion into private lives became universally unwelcome.