One way to cut vim from mouse awareness seems to be commenting out the configuration about the mouse.
In /usr/share/vim/vim80/defaults.vim I commented out the mouse specific detection as in:
" In many terminal emulators the mouse works just fine. By enabling it you
" can position the cursor, Visually select and scroll with the mouse.
"if has('mouse')
" set mouse=r
"endif
(in those vim configuration files, " is initiating a comment).
The change has allowed us to copy and paste again without any problems.
I do agree with the comments this is not the ideal solution, due to indeed being overwritten into any update unless the configuration file is protected (or diverted). At the time, and due to specifics either of a version of the package or of the configuration of the servers where I used to work, it was the only one that worked. As such, I am leaving this answer here, and should only be used as a last resortit should only be used as a last resort solution.