JP it would seem along with deutsche bank + Goldman Sachs is going to set up an SLV equivalent in copper ie. sell "paper" copper on the COMEX. It just another derivative product it seems these guys think they can make a buck out of.
JP paid about a billion bucks to buy something like 80% of the above ground stockpile of copper but when you think about it, the stockpiling of copper at $8 a kilo is a rather expensive exercise. You'd have to melt, pour and then store a rather low value, high volume item - so there's probably not much incentive for anyone to stockpile it, hence not much of it.
Is this a play on silver? Well, unlikely I would have thought. You could argue JP will try to get a copper derivative going, thereby pumping up the price of copper (opposite to their objective in silver price), then a higher copper price will result in more mining of copper and as silver is a by-product more silver to thereby reduce the silver price.
More likely, JP & Co are just out to make $$$ out of manipulating yet another commodity.