Yes, copyright is unethical, as is closed-source distribution. Sell actual work - there's always work to be done on or around software. My project is livestreaming software, but it turns out there's plenty of folks who don't want to set up livestreaming software, they just want to pay someone for the result of having a solid branded stream - so my business model is providing them that end. If I could do it reasonably with existing software, I would, but I can't, so I'm writing software for it.

Why do you think so? Purism created its products using crowdfunding, i.e. they sold their devices (and free software on them) before anyting was created.