America and the Epic Copyright

I found it incredibly interesting that the copyright act was actually enacted in 1790, predating the United States Bill of Rights. Our founding fathers must have found the issue extremely important to the well-being of our country. They foresaw the need to allow creators of all sorts to protect their work and claim what is rightfully their own. I imagine they felt quite close to the issue, for America was their new creation that required their upmost protection.
As important as copyright is, I also believe that as the world becomes more and more technological and computerized, copyright issues are rising. So much information is produced daily and what is and is not protected under law can become very muddled and confusing to users. I feel that many people know when they are crossing the line and breaking a copyright law, but I also feel that there are those who do not even realize that the two songs they downloaded from the user-friendly website “X” are actually copyrighted and punishable by law. So much on the web is unclear and I feel that users who do not quite understand what is and is not copyrighted should have an advantage of talking to companies about their situation without being automatically fined. I suggest that if a company finds a person unclear what they have done and did not mean any harm to the company’s well being, that they should drop most of the cash-based penalty and instead require the person to take a course on copyright laws and issues.
I also understand that even if a person is unaware of their crime, they still may be costing the company profits. I propose that a company works to find out the intentions of the committer and then charge them accordingly to their intentions and the lost profits to a reasonable degree.