Yes, in the US when you try to get prints of photos that look to be professionally taken, you'd often be asked for the photographer's copyright release, especially if it's something like wedding photos where there are usually professionals involved. It can be a bit of a pain, such as when they're just your own family photos taken with a "real" camera, but I suppose it does sometimes help to protect photographers against unscrupulous clients.

That's outrageous. Why would it unscrupulous for a client to make more prints of a given photo? Surely the primary service is taking the photograph, and the client then owns the photo? I actually work as a cam op / director (obviously a different but related medium), and the idea that I would charge someone additionally, or try to prevent them from creating a copy of something I'd created expressly for them is just absurd. For example if I filmed a wedding for a couple (as many of my friends do), I'd charge for shooting or editing, and perhaps an original gift copy on some specific format (deluxe USB key or whatever). But after that point the couple would be free to distribute the film - they already paid for it. What happens if the original photographer is no longer in business, or can't be contacted or sells the rights to your wedding photos to some awful copyright troll. My head is spinning thinking about the potential for exploitation.

It depends on the business model of the photographer. Higher end photographers usually work as you describe, but some, particularly on the lower cost end or in places like malls (think Santa or Easter Bunny pictures), will take dozens of photos for free, but then offer packages of images/prints at various price points. Usually there's a digital package that will include high res versions of all images along with the full rights, but that tends to be priced relatively high. What some clients might do is to buy a lower end package (or none at all) and then try to make prints of additional pictures from the digital sample images they're given, thereby circumventing the photographer's business model. The resulting photos are of course of poor quality, due to low resolution and imperfect watermark removal, but some people really don't care if it can save them some money. You're right that it all seems unnecessarily complicated, but look at the healthcare system we have.

Here in the US, print shops will typically require you to check a box indicating that you own the copyright to any images you are printing. I don't know how tightly this is monitored or enforced by most shops, however.

One funny thing that happened to me is that when I tried to print some company tshirts on Zazzle, they rejected the order because it included my company's logo, which they somehow identified and flagged (for trademark reasons, not copyright). This was shocking, given that I'm a solopreneur.

Equally interesting: once I simply said that I was the owner of the company, they made no attempt to confirm (I was using my wife's personal Zazzle account, since she uses it frequently, so the email domain would not confirm ownership). They just green-lit the order. I was pleased not to have to jump through a bunch of hoops, but it was surprising how easy it was to claim to be the IP owner.

I'm sure enforcement is all over the map but commercial print shops absolutely won't wholesale copy stuff they think is a copyright violation. There was even a lawsuit against Federal Express a few years back because they were making money from copying Creative Commons non-commercially licensed material.

Different nations have different interpretations of intellectual property in general. Combined with treaties that provide protections in other nations. It all will vary.

I suspect the law is all too similar, it's the enforcement that tends to vary. Recently moved from back from living in Germany. On paper Germany has similar noise nuisance laws to most countries. In practice they're super officious about enforcement, with a whole police force dedicated just to nuisance complaints. Which has an extremely chilling effect on social life and neighbourly relations - since its normalised to call the police on ones neighbours.