Doug,

Sorry I don’t know any simple books, but I’m afraid copyright issues deal with ownership and all the fistfights and wrassling that have always arisen from that. Lots of detail. But the book I’ll mention here is pretty readable.

It’s been several decades since I read it (it’s now two full volumes) but the best book I’ve come across for getting an understanding of copyright and how intellectual property right can be prised apart and dealt with is

This Business of Music [this may just be volume I]
original author M. William Krasilovsky (now in the 10th edition so there’s a crowd…)
Hardcover: 576 pages
Publisher: Billboard Books; 10 edition (June 26, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0823077233
ISBN-13: 978-0823077236

Of course, it talks a lot about the music business (odd, that) recording contracts, representation & agency relationships, subsidiary rights, the history and logic behind the consent decrees leading to the formation of the “rights-monitoring agencies” BMI and ASCAP, how “Muzak” functions, et cetera.

Most of those things turn out to be inextricable from copyright issues.

As I recall, it’s more readable than most software manuals I’ve had to deal with.