> That Disney Corp can prevent you from viewing some collection of pixels, because THEY own it

A world without copyright is just as problematic as a world with copyright. With copyright, you run into the problem of excessive control. This wasn't too much of a problem in the past. If you bought a book, record, or video recording, you owned that particular copy. You could run into disagreeable situations because you didn't own the rights, but it was difficult to prevent anyone from from viewing a work once it had been published. (Of course, modern copyright laws and digitial distribution has changed that.)

On the flip side, without copyright, it would be far easier for others to exploit (or even take credit) for the work of another person without compensation or recourse. Just look at those AI "generated" images, or any website that blatently rips off the content created by another person. There is no compensation. Heck, there isn't even credit. Worse yet, the parties misrepresenting the content are doing their best to monetize it. Even authors who are more than willing to give their work away have every right to feel exploited under those circumstances. And all of that is happening with copyright laws, where there is the opportunity for recourse if you have the means and the will.

You don’t need credit to talk about pop culture. I don’t need to credit the Indian Jones copyright holder when I paint a stunning likeness of Ford in a kaki outfit with a whip, even if the holder might try to sue me over it. Copyright and credit aren’t the same.

To reply to the parenthetical, copyright has nothing to do with credit. Taking credit for someone else's work is banned in some places in some contexts (they call this a moral rights regime) but not the same thing as what is being talked about when people say copyright (which is about copying and performing)

The idea that someone can't use ideas without someone else making money from it is a really, really, radically weird idea and is very new in the history of human society.