what the reason copyright exists in the first place might be.
I told you the reason. People wanted monopoly to print books. It is literally the right to copy. It is not called the right of being the creator and having complete control over the creation or the ideas represented in the creation.
Consider the fairy tales back then. No one even had a concept that it was not ok to retell a story they heard. Quite to the contrary. So what type of copyright did the Brothers Grimm aquire when writing them up and making a book out of it?
Or do you think any scribe asked permission when copying a book? That was not a concept, till the monopolies in book printing. And giving monopolies for certain items was common practice back in the day,
The history and hence the reason why this exists is neatly described in the wiki article about the thing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
What you cited about the importance of copyright is an opinion piece. And it is badly worded.
The importance of copyright is an essential component of the modern educational experience.
So, the copyright is not the component, but the importance of copyright is the component. And it is only a part of the expericence, whatever is meant by experience.
Copyright is important as it helps to protect the value of an author/academic/researchers work, by giving the originator of the work the ability to protect it from unlicensed or uncredited usage. This leads to the prevention of their work being copied to the degree where they cannot sell it effectively or receive credit for it.
Why does it protect the value? It resctricts copies. That can also devalue your work, because no one might bother experiencing it. This type of value protection is probably meant like the shortening of a market, but the type of works we are talking about are not a item that can be short in supply, like sculptures. Also why qualify the prevention with, to sell it effectifly. And it works only by deterring, because practiacally, it prevents nothing, only gives means to legally retaliate.
(1) In this way, (2) copyright fosters intellectual creativity (3) as it provides an incentive for a creator to work freely, (4) allowing them to gain recognition for their work as well as protecting their livelihood."
Oh boy. What a convoluted conclusion/claim.
1 refers to the sentences before, wich I do not quite understand the flow of logic.
2 No, it does not. The creative mind does not need the knowledge that it's work is protected to be creative in the first place. You are not faced with the decision: should I be creative today or not, after all, my work would be protected by copyright. Might give it a try...
3 What incentive would that be? Freely as in unburdened, I assume. Because freely as in free lunch is what copyright tries prevent from happening. Is this like a safe space argument? Lack thereof never prevented true artists in the past, so which artists need that kind of incentive? It might hamper certain methods of publishing, but claiming an incentive to be creative is a bold claim. So if you are concerened with bootlegs you might not release your work in a certain country. That kind of thing.
4 Ahahahaaa. Sorry. But gaining recognition is not what copyright helps you with. It does the opposite. Unless you have big publisher pouring big money into advertising, no one will recognize you, just because your work is protected. And for small time self publishers, the quality of their work and the free advertising of the unauthorized distribution of parts or even the full work is what gives them recognition.
As for protection the livelihood, that is more a publisher thing. If art or writing is your livelihood and you have no employer (like a professional publisher), how would that work? You write texts and want to sell them? To whom? Well, maybe that opinion piece is a bit specific to the university context it was written for. If you are a researcher and someone publishes your work under their name, they might get the research funding.
Do not get me wrong. A thing like copyright is needed. Falsly attributing the creator is problematic. But I do not think, being the creator of something should give complete control , like companies are trying to do with those software patents (because they could not copyright the idea behind the code). And concepts like fair use or the control over the purchased copy in my own home are examples where copyright should end.
But I wholeheartedly disagree with the notion that copyright is an incentive to be creative.
I concede that existence or lack of copyright is an incentive to chose certain methods of publishing. Just like those artists wanting to opt out of having their art used for ai training. It is a bit arrogant I think, to believe your art is important and good enough to set the standards of what an ai would think of concepts. On the other hand, if your art is that good, it is a bit sad, that you do not wish your art to be part of what future generations (of ai) will think how those concepts would look like. Imagine the inventor of an art style forbidding art students to imitate his style.