Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Stephen Woodward <deadpaperplate AT mac.com>]

I will probably be best served consulting a lawyer on this, but thought 
I would run by everyone out there.
I think the big question I am looking for the answer to is;  If I 
create a physical painting, its my creation, and copyright me.  If I 
sell it to someone, does the copyright transfer to the new owner?
The reason I am asking is I would like to license high resolution 
digital pictures of my paintings under a cc license.  Attrib and 
non-commercial, possibly share alike, but am not sure just yet.  So 
that the digital form of these paintings can be freely shared.  But, 
lets say one day someone buys one of these paintings from me.  If the 
copyright transfers to the new owner, then what is to stop them from 
going sue happy trying to stop all those digital copies out there?  
Completely undermining what I intended.  Naturaly if I retain the 
copyright to the sold item, then there wouldn't be a problem, which 
brought me to my original question.  Or is a photo (digital or 
otherwise) of a physical work, not even considered a copy of the 
original physical work?  even if its done well enough to look scanned 
in, or appear originaly digital?  I would guess not if Fox can demand 
$10k for a shot of The Simpsons in the background of a documentary.

Thanks in advance for any advice, and if any of my questions do not 
belong on this list I apologize ahead of time.

-steve