A very valid observation @ura-soul.
Thank you for raising a red flag in this regard.
I also feel that it would be a big mistake for the operators of Steem/ Steemit to disregard your words of warning.
There is a forth possibility... which involves an enhancement of a relatively old suggestion that I made about data flowers.
The enhancement concerned would be the introduction of the concept of author payout nodes/ petals within the context of such - where part of the curation process would involve identifying the author of a given copyrighted work - and ensuring them a direct healthy cut of residual monies generated.
What that cut might be I am not clear upon - but its a possibility - the blockchain benefiting authors of such works that might otherwise cause a copyrights claim.
Where this leaves the purveyor of such copyrighted works is open to discussion. That they should not financially benefit from the direct 'sharing' of such content should be pretty clear.
Also - it may seem to be against the spirit of blockchain but one thing that should be considered is to (more or less reversibly) edit content uploaded to blockchain that is deemed copyright infringing such that both sound and visual quality is warped.
Again, the circumstances within which this is done - is open to discussion.
Thank you again for bringing this to light. :c)
You are welcome!
Typically, within the existing entertainment industry, copyrighted material may be actively used without seeking authorisation - but the profits from that material may be held back by the publisher (not spent) in case of a claim being made and there being a need to renumerate the copyright holder later on.
In that same spirit, it would probably be seen as ok if there was no ability added to edit the blockchain, provided an agreed upon process was in place to allow copyright holders a window to stake their claim. The fingerprinting technology that is already in use by Youtube and others appears to be as close to an agreed upon industry standard as we are likely to see.