Others would say copyright is an instrumental tool to stifle the flourishing of open scientific and artistic activity. Scientific and artistic activity seems to flourish just fine in environments with less copyright.

It flourishes better in fact. Plenty of industries were started in specific locations because of lax intellectual property laws. Including the United States: the father of the american industrial revolution is just a guy who brought british intellectual property with him.

Intellectual property is just rent seeking by established corporations as well as protection against competition so that others can't enter the market. The days where they protected individual creators and inventors are long gone.