Trying to make my previous example more useful:

At any given time, I am driving in my car and carrying a hard drive with 100,000 files of “content” on it. Let’s say it’s possible though some technology to pretty much know my starting point and my destination, and to scan all of the data on that hard drive.

The law enforcement task is to make my car stop or limit my speed, and alert the authorities, if my possession or activity (e.g., distribution–if I am driving the files to someone else) is copyright infringement. And the larger law enforcement goals are to prevent people from infringing copyright in the first place, and to reliably catch people who infringe.

So, you need some kind of DRM / “flag” on every content file, which somehow encapsulates all of the rights someone has, and you need to also tie those rights to someone’s identity. And, you need to know intent and context in many cases (e.g., am I driving the hard drive to someone else’s house for offsite storage, or to distribute files?).

And, if it all works really well, our driver can never even pull out of his driveway in the first place, because his car stops before he drives anywhere.

That’s sort-of the fantasy scenario, right?