Some populistic thoughts:
I see the problem and I am on your side, this could (and pobably will) harm steemit.
But really: WHO whould have thought for one second that this kind of things will not happen?
One of the first things I thought was... NICE the big enterprises like paramount, disney and all these Hollywood craps could buy into steemit and flag the sh++t out of these guys while pushing steemprice to the moon ;-)
The next thought was:
Nope. Will not happen. They will probably sue steemit and / or d-tube resulting in a gray zone / legal war like with megaupload several years ago.
A lot of publicity will result... nice (possibly... or not. Megaupload was dead after that)
Actually I think we have to redefine what intellectual property is and how it should/could be monetarized. Steemit is one of the needles in the flesh of the giant, driving this thought process forward.
Your latter thought is exactly what would happen. The blockchain is the enemy of corporatocracy thus far and is undermining regulations already. They'd love an excuse.
Would you like a spatula? For your bunghole?
I do understand your views. What happens here maybe a driver to redefine copyright. But am not sure if it is done at the right time. The movie industry is becoming more fierce in fighting copyright abuse, so as you suggested as well, the movie industry will very likely fight what is now happening here at Steemit through the court system and demand the discontinuation of the service and blockchain.
What I simple do not understand is that fact that DTube and I think also View/ly do not seem to have any T&C stating that uploading and publishing of copyrighted material is not allowed. This is something that IS addressed with a service like LBRY as far as I know. For sure, this may not prevent uploading of copyright materials, but it shall start with telling the uploaders to stick to the existing laws. This is where the harm already starts; Creators and owners of services not thinking what they are doing. Subsequently this leeds to what we are now see happening; Abuse of the law and now in a industry where the 'authorities' have no mercy.
We will see how "strong" the actual decentralizing works against these laws. Imho you are right about that the timing is not really good. Would be some kind of different if there were REAL decentraliziation and millions of users.
When de-centralised would be implemented with many nods running the network, maybe 1.000, across the whole world, and no centralised tools are used to execute the prime services (like the UIs), then it could be something that is very difficult to take down. But then again, the authorities could start by the users, to take them doen one by one when the eg consumer copyrighted material that is uploaded and published outside the law. When that is fought hard, other users may stop such behaviour, or may leave the service and go somewhere else. The later would be the death of Steemit and Steem.