In the XVII century, copyright in Spain was a period of ten years long, since the first edition, not renewable. I'm talking of a country notorious for its steep geography and bad communications, at a period of both dangerous colonisation, wars and abject poverty. That century is now known as the Spanish Golden Age of Literature.

History has proven that, past a point, money does not seem to translate into creativeness. Cultures almost always have their most creative periods at times of social and intellectual changes (say, XIX-XX century Germany) and when intellectual work is regarded as prestigious and respected by the public (physics on America post-Einstein/WW2).