Prosaic title, I know. But it's true. Every now and then, copying to remote systems via Apple Remote Desktop fails inexplicably. Fortunately, the solution is a simple one: restart the ARD Agent, conveniently named ARDAgent. Said command will look something like this:
sudo killall -HUP ARDAgent
Ironically, you can also send the command to the offending system via ARD itself. Just be sure you remove the sudo and send it as root.