My understanding is that it's fairly simple. "Copyright" is more or less the same thing as "patent".
-- "Are we a species trying to help each other improve each other's lives or not?" --
For many -- perhaps most -- people, no.
Most people are just trying to make a buck. Nevertheless, if we can set things up so that people will benefit others WHILE making a buck, then they'll be inclined to do so. I've read that one of the major reasons why the ancient Greeks, Romans, etc, weren't very interested in advancing technology was that there was no system of patents -- no guarantee that if you invented X, you could make a buck from it.
Copyright isn't *exactly* the same as patent, but I know that in the early days of the printing press, authors had a lot of trouble with people "pirating" their works. (I've just been re-reading Voltaire, and he complains that people have come out with some terribly edited pirated editions of his works that make him look like an idiot.)