RE: How Plagiarism Can End Steemit And What You Can Do About It
Even if the author is anonymous, the founders are legally bound entities with their company being legally liable for defraud
I don't think that is entirely true. I suspect the Steemit lawyers have looked into this issue, and I don't think they would have proceeded if they were on the hook for this. They have taken the position that they reserve the right to remove the displaying of any copyrighted material from the Steemit website, if it is brought to their attention.
I believe it is the responsibility of the poster to properly reference their material, as you have recommended above. If they do not do this, then they are at fault. If after the fact, a post is found to be in violation, then I think having it removed would be a better solution than the community having to do the work to update the copyright info for the post retroactively.
This is a really good and well thought out post though. I think it is important for all of us to take copyright seriously, and I'm appreciative of the fact you are posting constructive solutions to the problem!
We all earn moneyu here from each other. We are all shareholders. In the real world the goverment won't care if one or two shareholders stole money when knowingly others have invested in them. We all owe to have checked.
If a whale upvotes a post that has copyrighted material or with no references and that posts make thousands and attracts traffic from outside sources what do you think the legal impact would be?
We need to stop upvoting material that is not pro[erly referenced. sooner or later someone will start knocking and then until further notice of endless battles in court everything will freeze.
remember pirate bay. same thing here. the blockchain issue is very similar to the torrent one.
It is a really interesting question! I will honestly say that I do not know with 100% certainty. It is the main area where I think you and I are not in full agreement though. (Are there any lawyers in the room?) :)
My limited legal understanding though says that owners of Steem/SP/SBD currency are not liable for illegal payments made by the system. I realize it is not 100% the same, but it is loosely analogous to someone holding BTC being held liable because someone else paid for drugs using BTC. We are at the end of the day holding currency, and not shares in a company.
Steemit Inc. could be liable, because they are displaying the content. In the same way as Facebook, Reddit, etc. are able to resolve themselves by censoring illegal content though - Steemit Inc. should be covered by doing what they do. (And they do.)
It does get to an interesting question though. How do you hold the blockchain liable?
With all of that said though, I do agree with you 100% that we all need to do our part to stop plagiarism, and that we have a shared responsibility to identify and flag it when it happens. Liability aside, I think most of us agree that we all lose when these types of content 'creators' make off with a stake of the Steemit reward pool!
It has already been touched on a lot in the comments, but I do want to end by giving a shout-out to the people in the @steemcleaners community. I think they are doing an awesome job, and providing an extremely important service to the members of the Steemit community with what they do!
Thanks for the post!
//We are at the end of the day holding currency, and not shares in a company.//
maybe if we were just using steem and steem dollars. steem power though makes the whole thing different.
You don't hold a blockchain liable. you hold the currency liable and the company build on top of it.
Steem Power is still just a currency, with an agreement to lock it in for a period of 2 years and ability to influence the blockchain. There is no implied ownership over the blockchain by holding it, or (I believe) any liability in the actions that are taken on the blockchain. I do see your point though. It is a gray area :)
Yes, I do realize that :) .. It was more a rhetorical question, since the nature of this being run by a decentralized blockchain does leave a gap as far as who can be held liable for what happens.
Yes, this is where we will probably have to agree to disagree for now. I hold the position that the only company in the picture (Steemit Inc.) is not liable for what happens, and that having a stake in SP does not transfer liability of the blockhain's behavior onto the holders of SP either.
time will show tim :)