I think this is an interesting objection. Does copyright really achieve this objective of keeping the story in the control of the original creator and a single

I think this is an interesting objection. Does copyright really achieve this objective of keeping the story in the control of the original creator and a single "true canon", though? Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney, so now the "true canon" is no longer Lucas' vision, but Disney's. Maybe if there were multiple versions, someone else could carry the story on in a different way you might prefer better. Even if there were no copyright, the original creators could keep extending their stories indefinitely, and people could continue following those if they were the best ones, or the only ones considered "real". I don't want to get into a debate about NFTs, but they could be used to verify content came from a particular source if you wanted to have some assurance that a particular piece of content was part of the "official canon".