The fact that Disney fights viciously for the extension of copyright periods goes against your assumption.
If it were legal to simply copy ideas from anyone without caring about copyrights, I seriously doubt they'd have any issues with doing so.
Of course Disney would love endless exclusive rights on all their IP, but if copyright is too weak they can also just copy small creators without negative consequences. Disney wouldn't lose much if a small artist sells a few products on Etsy but could crowdsource all their new ideas for free.