"So I can steal GPL code then?"
Sure. Abolish copyrights, and there'll be no NEED for the GPL.
" ... but culture can't survive in the long term if its creators don't get rewarded for their work ... "
1) Bullshit. "Culture" did, can, and will survive if there were NO payments for artistic creation. Artists create because they're DRIVEN to it; they'll do it regardless of payment. Jerry Bruckheimer "creates" because he gets PAID.
2) Your fevered histrionics aside, allowing copying doesn't mean creators will NEVER EVER EVER EVER make another cent. There are other business models. There may never be another Madonna, Garth Brooks, or Beiber, but who cares?
"Would you like it if your boss withheld your paycheck and told you your code "wanted to be free" and that you were a casualty of technology changing the world?"
Sure, because they don't pay me for my code, they pay me for my working on THEIR code. They stop paying, I stop keeping their shit working, and find somebody else who wants their code improved, rewritten, or otherwise changed and still working afterwards, to pay me.
A better analogy for the copyright industries would be if I wrote code for my boss, got paid for it, agreed to let them own it, then went and bribed Congress to change the law so that my boss had to continue to pay me my full salary for as long as they wanted to keep using the code I AGREED TO LET THEM OWN in the first place.
Anything else you need explained?