But the reason why there's even anything called 'Copyright Infringement' is because there's a general notion that one can make a creative work that's value is in the concept rather than the physical embodiment.
You can follow that notion if you like. The notion I tend to follow isn't the promulgated one of compensation for conceptual thoughts. The original notion of copyright is buried in the history of the Vatican during the protestant reformation for control of the printing press and rapid dissemination of the Bible. Pesky protestants of the day were reading and putting their own spin on the Bible, this angered a corrupted Rome. To combat this loss of power, the corrupted officials (the Pope, et. al) introduced legislation to prohibit copying things (the Bible). The cried out how the poor scribes would loose their jobs, when the reality was that these corrupted officials would loose their jobs as the hoi polloi of the day might just be able to understand that the Bible wasn't all truth, but, in fact it was a poorly verified historical document.
Say what you will about it being theft, but, the true reason for copyright isn't to compensate the "owners" of Elvis' recordings. The true reason for the continuance of copyright is to ensure that certain corruptible officials maintain their lifestyle at the expense of the "hoi polloi".
I don't know why slashdotters have persisted for well over ten years
Maybe thats because the copyright system is both morally and intellectually corrupt, from it's birth to it's modern day construct. Slashdot is (or once was) an intellectual site, people with intelligence can see just how wrong the system is because, unlike the sheep, we can see just how wrong copyright is. The foundations of this well justified persistence most likely originate from these original slash-dotters.