alt Hacker NewsThe most basic incentive is for the fun of it. There are plenty of people who publish stuff without hoping to get directly compensated for it. Even otherwise, ideas have a nasty habit of breaking free from the first authors, specially without laws to prevent such.
Also, copyright isn't about compensating authors, but publishers. Authors are basically an afterthought.
In regards to countries with weaker copyright enforcement, I think there's a bit of an inversion. Most countries that fail to properly enforce copyright do so due to a lot of structural issues, which also hamper creative thinking for independent reasons. China would be an example of a country with weaker copyright enforcement but also with good infrastructure, and it seems to be overtaking (if it already didn't) the US in terms of creative production (both for copyright and patents).
> Also, copyright isn't about compensating authors, but publishers.
That depends on the country. There are moral rights [0] which are usually non-transferable from the authors. That’s especially the case in the European tradition of copyright: “In most of Europe, it is not possible for authors to assign or even broadly waive their moral rights. This follows a tradition in European copyright itself, which is regarded as an item of property which cannot be sold, but only licensed.”
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights