Well, the good news is that as far as the contest goes, @luzcypher and his team tend to only pick originals as the winner! So you have a way better chance of winning the weekly contest with original submissions. As far as covering someone else's song, I suppose if that person is on Steemit, it may be nice to offer them a little something in SBD, but if you are just covering a welll-known musician, I wouldn't worry too much. It's such a small amount anyway. I reckon it's similar to people who perform covers here in bars for like 3 hours and walk away with like $75. It's such a pittance that I doubt anyone is concerned. As far as the long term of Steemit goes, and making tons of money, well, I don't know what the future holds for Steemit. YouTube has it pretty well figured out by being able to split monetization with the owner of the song. Maybe dTube will figure something like that out for the future too! For now I wouldn't let it concern you!
I am going to check out your entry right now!!! :)