JTD, thanks for taking out some time to write that mail, but I'm afraid to say that I couldn't understand a word of the following paragraph (which I is the crux of your argument). Could you please try explaining it with a different approach?
Consider a VHDL file that describes a PCI /AGP/USB/other device.
Copyright serves the purpose of preventing copying or creating derivative works of this file. Any number of permutations of VHDL elements are likely to produce the same end result silicon (perhaps less effeciently). Now adding a driver to control this piece of VHDL code manifested in some silicon does not in anyway change the fact that one could recreate the same functionality with different VHDL + driver or only silicon without vhdl or only software on a DSP / processor or any number of permutation combinations. Why? because the vhdl is a description which tells the interpreter to produce silicon based on a silicon vendors library description of vhdl circuit elements. The resulting silicon will differ drastically from one silicon vendor to another. Similiarly a piece of software code will produce a different set of binaries depending on libraries created for a particular expression of silicon + compiler.
Saurabh.