They were also being passed around for free. Nobody was getting paid. I recently read how the owner of the grumpy cat photos was rewarded nearly 1 million dollars in a lawsuit of sorts. That money has to come from somewhere. Since money is now involved here, it's a slippery slope. Since some of us use pseudonyms and can't be easily tracked down, those lawyers who make a living looking for ways to sue people would just go straight to Dmania. If you're running a business, it's only common sense to have all of your ducks in a row.
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Copyright infringement doesn't have to be profitable for it to be copyright infringement. Money needn't be involved at all. You're right that people often don't take interest until money is involved, but it's still copyright infringment to steal Grumpy Cat's likeness whether you're getting 10 SBD from it or whether you're getting 100 karma on reddit.
I agree philosophically, but that's not how law in the USA works. You and I might roll our eyes to see posting unlicensed Grumpy Cat memes be considered a form of "stealing", but that's how intellectual property law works.
I don't think the law says "stealing". Copyright laws have words that make more sense for the topic, such as unauthorised copying, reproduction, unlicensed distribution, etc.
Let's say I'm poor, I write every day, and I'm trying to make money by publishing one chapter a day in a premium site such as medium.com (where the readers have to pay a subscription fee to read unlimited publications). Every time I get a view and a vote, I get money. It's similar to here except all votes are worth the same.
I don't want someone's blog called "read medium for free" to re-publish my work. I would lose my profits because less people would pay to view it (why pay if it's available for free?).
Therefore, I choose a solution: I adhere to copyright laws and I publish my chapters under a License that says "you shall not re-publish this work without my authorisation".
It is simply a compromise that I hope will be fulfiled. Ideally, this is not a law but setting things straight with my readers. If one of my readers chooses to re-publish my work, they would be directly harming me and breaking the compromise.
I would then immediately cease to publish those works because it is not profitable anymore. My readers who do pay would be harmed, but I would have no other choice since I'm not making enough to make a living out of it and I need to look for another source of income.
A License here is a protection measure set toward the producers of content.
This can be extrapolated to copyright laws: they are there to protect the creators of content from the possible incursion by consumers in the unduly usage of the content (which would ideally be only things that harm the creator and the integrity of the content, such as reputation, income, etc.)
I wouldn't want someone to print it
If I publish a chapter to my novel everyday for the next 100 days and I want people not to print my chapters and sell them themselves because I'm trying to make money out of them (i.e. I'm doing it because I need the money)
Tell that to @grumpycat LOL
USA be damned!! Another faceless corporation
Check artopium's response below for a lawyer's view on the image plagiarism issue.
I still believe original content producers should be rewarded while the plagiarists get nothing. There's enough bad press about anything cryptocurrency related. Some people still think it's a dark web tool to purchase guns and drugs. We don't need to follow the same road as napster when we already know the outcome. That's the part I think @artopium is missing. Lawyers step in, the media steps in, the place gets a bad name, all of these investors lose. It's simple stuff and we've already seen what happens in the past.
I agree with your view. It would suck for that to happen to Steem and to the blockchain in general. But today we're in the age of uncensorship, whistleblowers, freedom of information, insurgent journalism. This is just the logical consequence and it is bound, regardless of our choices today, to keep growing in that direction.
And it will be accepted by the hivemind because it will theoretically allow journalists to publish undeletable work, uncensorable words. Imagine a perfect Wikileaks or a clearnet Tor. I think that's where Steem leads no matter the efforts toward cleansing the improper content.
I myself am working on a search tool for the blockchain. It's not advanced at all, but it would allow to get low rep and high rep results equally. Votes would not matter much in the end if this succeeds.
Those journalists would be publishing original content. I fully support having freedoms and the benefits that come along with a free and open society. History shows us those who abuse freedoms are the ones who typically ruin it for everyone else. People can protest, but as soon as someone starts smashing windows, they all get the pepper spray. That's an abuse of freedom. Just because the windows are there and just because they can be smashed, that doesn't mean it's a good idea to smash them. Embrace freedom, enjoy it, there's no need to abuse it.
What is it?