The legal system has well-established means for dealing with the loss of important papers like titles, deeds, contracts, wills, power of attorneys, passports, birth certificates, receipts, etc.
For example, you can make a certified copy, and deposit the copy in a safe deposit box or with your lawyer.
Right, but let's say you didn't do that because you weren't well-versed in the legal system, so all you did was register your copyright, then transfer the registration to your friend, who then stashed the documentation in a filing cabinet.
Should you have to be an expert in the legal system to avoid losing your intellectual property when your house burns down?
Like I said, there are established legal precedents for what to do if you burn your papers.
Besides, the whole reason lawyers exist is so that people who aren't experts in the legal system can hire one. You're not going to get very far in business without discovering you need the services of a lawyer and a CPA. Often the hard way.
I recall the actor Will Smith (Fresh Prince) who discovered the hard way that he needed the services of a CPA.
"Let's take a system that works today and impose an additional paper trail, where you lose all your rights if you lose the paper trail."
"Won't that penalize people who don't have a lawyer and who lose their paper trail?"
"Tough, people need to learn to use lawyers"
In fact, now that I right that out, that's an extremely antagonistic approach to take and it punishes the least privileged people (e.g. the people who can't afford lawyers), while doing absolutely nothing for the giant corporations who have lawyers on retainer and will naturally have a process in place to retain proper copies of the paper trail always.
For example, you can make a certified copy, and deposit the copy in a safe deposit box or with your lawyer.