[chongli]

For example, there's a $10 million suit against Warner Brothers of the film Gravity. Tess Gerritsen, a writer, alleges that the film film depicts the major events in a book she worte in 1999 and optioned to a film production company. The problem is that in the meantime that company no longer exists after a bunch of acquisitions, mergers and so on, and although there's good reason to think her book wound up in the hands of the film's writer/director and that the film is indeed derivative o the book, her legal problem is an inability (at present) to prove that Warner Brothers is the ultimate beneficial owner of the firm she was dealing with back in 1999. The problem here is not so much copyright as a lack of transparency in corporation law.

Isn't this direct evidence against the claim that "copyright protects individuals against big corporations"? If it weren't for copyright, Warner Brothers would collapse and we'd be back to holding each other accountable on a personal level.

[anigbrowl]

No, and that's not a claim I've ever made in the first place. Copyright gives you a remedy against infringement, but you can still encounter procedural legal problems.