I feel like you're putting this in a way that ignores the historical context in which copyright arose. Copyright came about in response to too much copying than

I feel like you're putting this in a way that ignores the historical context in which copyright arose. Copyright came about in response to too much copying thanks to the printing press. The ultimate purpose of copyright was to encourage the progress of the arts and learning, yes — but the immediate purpose was was to make sure that authors would be fairly compensated for their work, instead of printers being able to just take any work they could get their hands on and profit off it without the creator of the work having any say in how his work was used or claim on the fruits of his labor. The idea was that authors were skilled workers practicing a valuable craft, and that the mere fact that distributors could ignore them in practice did not mean they should be entitled to do so with impunity. Nobody ever though that nobody would create anything without copyright. The idea was simply that skilled creators were not being duly compensated for their work, and that if they were fairly compensated, they would have more time to devote to creating as well as more incentive to continue.