The issue is that Netflix doesn't control those restrictions, the content creators (well, rights holders) do, and their incentives don't always align.

Yea, what I mean by "people who make decisions" is everybody involved: studios, distributors, rights holders, and the maze of middlemen who have inserted themselves into the business: If all of them decided that more money could be made, if not for those pesky licenses, the "licensing problems" would immediately disappear.