Comment Re:But copyright IS working (Score 5, Interesting) 314
I think the 'supporting the established players' argument has merits.
As a young country, the US was notorious for ignoring copyrights and patents held in older, countries during its early development. Japan had the same reputation; China is arguably just leaving this phase itself, as they've tightened their IP rules for WIPO purposes in order to more easily access other markets with their products.
It would seem that, for countries and businesses both, there's a threshold they cross where they realise the value of their ideas, if copyrighted, is worth more to them than the cost of paying for the ideas of others.