[arrosenberg]

You are entitled to that opinion, but exclusive distribution is antithetical to the idea of competitive enterprise. If we are going to continue to go that route, America should stop pretending we care about robust markets.

[lotsofpulp]

I do not see why exclusive distribution is always a bad thing, unless one is also claiming that a manufacturer has no right to sell directly to end users, such as Tesla.

Would a carpenter be able to only distribute their furniture directly to their customer? A hotel be not be able to exclusively take reservations from their hotel guests? An independent videographer not be able to sell their own videos however they want?

I think the solution here is to reduce copyright to 10 years. Or maybe 15. Then there is no more “exclusive” distribution.

[arrosenberg]

In our combined scenario a carpenter can sell to anybody as long as they sell to everybody at the same price for the same type of buyers (retail/wholesale).

The solution is to mandate non discriminatory licensing, everything else you suggested is a workaround to avoid that step.