In the Digital Realm

Reproduction in the digital realm involves the encoding/decoding of a text message or the analog representation of a work of intellectual property to/from a sequence of numbers, according to a publicly known code or codes.

Resolution of an analog representation in the digital realm is simply the ratio of the least significant number to the most significant number, in any or each "dimension" chosen to be encoded. Text representation can be perfect in the digital realm; other analog representations are limited by the resolution of the encoding process (often called "quantification," which occurs as part of the analog-to-digital conversion process).
Digital recordings (of any sort) are thought of as "perfect" because (given error-detection and -correction algorithms used as part of the storage/recovery process) there is no difference between the original number sequence and the copy. In fact, digital representations of analog-based intellectual properties are not perfect, but only as accurate as the resolution of the quantification process in the conversion from the analog to the digital realm.

In the digital realm, the intellectual property has no fixed physical embodiment; the sequence of numbers is the representation of the intellectual property, and therefore the intellectual property itself can be thought of as stripped away from any necessarily fixed physical embodiment (except for generic "number-storing" and "number-handling" machines, such as computers and their memories).

The implication of this has practical and significant implications for copyright:

•Given that we are rapidly moving toward a technological world where all information (and intellectual property) is encoded into and stored in the digital realm, it is no longer reasonable to equate the physical embodiment of the intellectual property in some analog medium with the property itself, and to therefore base compensation upon the sale and/or transfer of such physical embodiments.

•Given that such digital storage, transmission and reproduction is simple, broadly diverse, cheap and accurate, copyright law should address the issue of compensation due to the owners of the intellectual property stored, transmitted and copied in media that are not physically fixed or defined.