Seriously. I recall a thousand hours of movies. Those memories sit in my head and I pay no royalties

Put what you recall on paper, turn it into a screenplay. Let me know how quickly you get sued.

Good artists copy, great artists steal.

Trillion dollar companies license.

One could argue most screenplays are derivative.

Hollywood has extraordinarily well-defined controls for keeping things legal and everyone in the chain compensated. Plus a separate Oscars category for it.

I heard somewhere there's like eight basic plots or something. and everything else is just an elaboration on that

True, they live in your head rent free. But if you produce a derivative work, you have to pay.