The US was founded by people who viewed copyrights as just another form of the Crown-bestowed monopolies which so hamstrung the British economy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Yes, but that wasn't my point. I didn't say that the US was founded on the idea of copyrights, but capitalism. Copyrights are merely a (possible) logical outworking of that principal. What I was referring to as "NOT the very thing our country was founded on" was the idea that people should be expected to contribute to socity regardless of profit.

Edit: Edited out IRregardless. ARRG!