Sort:  

Its a very grey area when it comes to Steemit (but of course a strong argument can be made) because @hilarski did not technically ask for payment. Since he did express his intentions are to share the images and no way did he charge anyone. Then again, it's Grey when it comes to the term "profit" so I'm in no position to comment on that.

I guess the lesson we can all learn here is to first understand about copyright firsthand and make sure we all have express permission from the original photographer and the photo subject before using the pictures for whatever purpose.

@hilarski im sure your intentions are good. You create content which people can share within the community. But the "mess up" here is the whole copyright thing. Imagine if someone used your image and slap a meme aggregator company brand on it without letting you know. If it's me I'd be pissed and feel violated.

There will be angry people because I know many of them can either relate to someone who have their work stolen or had their own photographs hijacked and made profit by someone else.

I hope you understand the outcry.

@awesomianist There is absolutely zero grey area in this matter. I find it difficult to believe that with all the other photographers here that this has not already been addressed within the SteemIt community. To smugly cite a link with its terms to an image site that you do not fully comprehend, alter images by commercializing them with a brand, accepting payment on post (profiting), and then telling the entire community to do the same, smacks of blatant intellectual property theft/copyright infringement, and only perpetuates the ignorance. No one is above copyright laws. If you don't fully understand the implications associated with these issues, I strongly recommend exercising the time to educate yourselves about them.

Perhaps I'm too liberal to say that there is grey area.
However I must agree on all your other points. In fact I believe copyright is a very important matter and one of the main concern by the greater community.