Given other issues floating around maybe rather than go to something as restrictive as what was proposed at the end of the article take a half step.<p>Leave much of the law today as is (copyrights can apply to more than the original copyright law allowed and are automatically in force even without registering) but change the duration mechanism.<p>For the first 14 years of the work's existence you get a copyright for free.<p>For the next 14 years, you can re-register but with a higher but still nominal fee.<p>For each year after that, you must re-register and the fee goes up at an accelerating rate eventually reaching millions per year per copyrighted item. I'm assuming there would have to be a cap somewhere.<p>The government gets new revenue, most copyrights are shortened and enter the public domain more quickly and for the copyrights that are extremely valuable and still producing value in excess of the ever increasing registration fee, it will be worthwhile for the holder to pay.