I'm not sure how you got the idea that I was trying to argue about what copyright LAW says. I was simply making the case that, just as with quantum mechanics, nothing about copyright is based on common sense, so people need to be careful to be aware of this bias when they think about these issues, especially when a lot of people discussing this have moral / philosophical positions that confuse their view of the legal standing of the plaintiffs. "That doesn't seem right" is a question of legislation policy, not of interpreting existing law.

No, it makes more sense than you think. It's not total sense, but it makes more sense than you think. It's just that since you don't seem to know what the terms mean you're getting a greater sense of confusion than is justified, plus technical people just can't resist the lure of trying to create bizarre exceptions which don't help.

What constitutes a single work is basically what a person on the street would answer is a single thing. What constitutes a collective work is basically what a person on the street would call a collective work, after they answer the first question. (That is, if you start here they might say an album is one work, but if you get them to agree that a song is one thing once they probably won't say that.) What constitutes copying is basically what a person on the street would agree is copying. That certainly isn't good enough advice to go off of if you're going to try to build a business off of it or something, and edge cases abound, but the core concepts aren't anywhere near as screwed up as you might think. The problem isn't conceptual with copyright, it is how the concepts are used and abused.