> Without copyright, moneyed interests would be able to simply wait for promising new artists to create something that resonates with an audience, then copy tha

> Without copyright, moneyed interests would be able to simply wait for promising new artists to create something that resonates with an audience, then copy that thing and aim their massive marketing budgets at dominating that audience with the new version owned by the [corporation, famous artist, etc]. Copyright doesn’t mitigate this risk, for if it did, it would do the same thing for the example you cite in the second paragraph. (Software and game assets are also protected by copyright. . .)