We might be at an impasse. I just don’t think someone is entitled to a decade long lock down on their ideas. If you don’t want other people involved, don’t publish. Fan fiction has been part of human culture for like all of it. The idea that you can’t profit from it is comparably modern.

basically just harkens back to what i said back up there. what about an author that does great world building, their world never becomes popular or makes money, and then someone else 7 years later sees their world building and makes their own story within that world and makes all the money and fame from it while the original author gets nothing?

Tough? Like in your scenario the work is just wasted and no one reads it. That’s no better.

Many endeavors fail.

just don’t want to pay people who are profiting off someone else’s ideas but not compensating them for it.

That’s how humanity has worked for thousands of years. Disney didn’t write snow white. They made a new work based on it.