In principle, it sounds good. The problem is that laws are made generally by people who have no idea about how technology works. And even when they do, they don't want to. We're still struggling with laws for something as basic as network neutrality.

There's also a lot of wiggle room that would make it difficult for a one-size-fits-all law to cover and, more importantly, enforce. You'd be looking at needing some kind of agency that actually made sure the rules were followed and settled disputes.

Maybe it could be done on a good faith basis, the way that groups like the Writers Guild of America arbitrate cases among members. If you could get Google and a few other big players on board, you might have a groundswell. But there's a lot of incentive for big tech companies not to want to stop the free circulation of content when the only people they're really hurting are writers and readers, not themselves.