One of the supposed justifications for the intellectual monopoly called copyright is that it drives creativity and culture. In the last few weeks alone we have had multiple demonstrations of why the opposite is true: copyright destroys culture, and not by accident, but wilfully. For example, the MTVNews.com site, along with its sister site CMT.com, …
I don’t know about theory, more of the retrocon. If it was really there to encourage innovation we would have ironclad caselaw that prevented any artist from not getting properly paid. I take your meaning however.