zlacker

Look - it's absolutely not the same thing. The point is to allow non-profit-seeking uses first. To push off the free-for-all of commercialization until after an interstitial period.

You can certainly pay the rights holder to use their property! Still! You could do it even without copyright I suppose. However, I think a space where it costs time and money for the rights holder to try to stop use and they won't get paid for it is super useful.

Consider this in the case of software as well - you get ~30 years of benefit from your work, but you can refuse to allow companies to incorporate it into their products as long as you live. Whichever companies you want! You can also not do that.