In industries where copying is accepted, like with cooking and fashion, the level of creativity is very high. You could argue that a high fashion brand "loses money" when a low price retailer, like H&M or Zara, produces more or less the same design, but very few do.

I recommend reading "The Pirate's Dilemma" which is available from $0.00 upwards at http://thepiratesdilemma.com/download-the-book

Edit: The difference between the high fashion brand and the low price retailer clothes are quality, perceived quality, recognition/brand, legitimacy and cost. Which is more or less the same difference as between a pirated copy and an original one.

Cooking and fashion are much more labor intensive than copying files.

Not the infringement itself, and not for the consumer. My main point was that the relation between copying and copyright infringement is arbitrary(1). Someone who argues that people won't create things if there is widespread copying, needs to realize that copying already is widespread.

I do get your point though. fashion and files are not the exact same thing, but are more related than one thinks. There's also other effects of the consumer being the distributor. Even 10 years ago there where no scalable method to distribute out-of-copyright works in a non-profit way, and therefor a lifetime of copyright made more sense.

(1) Hopefully has the same meaning in English, what I mean is that it's constructed and not a prerequisite for the act of creating things. Copyright law is cultural, not 'natural', as demonstrated by the pressure of US companies and government on other nations regarding copyright law.