That was when VHS and cassette tapes started to hit the market and there was no copy protection on those. Following that, people copied floppy disks enough that they had to make that "dont copy that floppy" jingle.
There was a brief period with the switch to digital and CDROMs where piracy stopped, but then CD burners hit the market and it started again.
Copyright predates corporations. Many corporations need copyright to extract profit. If you're anti-corporation but pro-copyright, you're the only with the big ol' giant hole.