[snowwrestler]

Consider the offsetting financial incentives here.

Sites like FunnyJunk can be created by a small team, allow the upload of a ton of copyrighted content by users, and then run ads next to copyrighted content. Boom, instant money, and if they do well, maybe an acquisition (see: YouTube). All they have to do is keep up with DMCA takedowns, which are few and far between from small content producers like The Oatmeal.

Meanwhile, if you want to build a company to automate content protection, you have to go find deep-pocketed content creators from day one. I don't know of any way to run ads against the creation of DMCA takedowns.

So the financial incentives are totally asymmetric. It's way easier and more lucrative to create a platform for infringing content, than for protecting it. Until that changes, small creators like The Oatmeal will get victimized.

[makomk]

If this changes small creators like The Oatmeal won't stand a chance. He bootstrapped the success of his website in large part through Reddit, which is of course a commercial site based around user-submitted content that allows and profits from a ton of copyright infringement. Stopping people from infringing your copyright is no good if no-one ever finds out about your content.

Obviously this doesn't matter to The Oatmeal anymore - everyone's heard of The Oatmeal by now, and preventing competitors from becoming well-known is probably good for profits - but it's not great for the internet in general. Probably wouldn't be good for YCombinator either.

[snowwrestler]

I don't think you've thought this through.

The difference between Reddit and FunnyJunk is that FunnyJunk actually hosts the image files on the FunnyJunk server, keeping visitors there.

Reddit does not host anything but text--when you post an "image" to Reddit, you're really just posting a link. This drives the traffic to The Oatmeal (or whoever), who can then monetize it.

Reddit is an example of a web startup doing it right. They drive tons of traffic around the web. Techmeme is another, and so is Hacker News.

[otoburb]

I can't help but feel that Pinterest was on your mind when you wrote your comment as a hyper-modern day poster child. If not, then it sure sprang right into mine.

[snowwrestler]

I'm not super familiar with Pinterest personally, but from what I've read, they drive significant amounts of traffic around the web, particularly to e-commerce. My understanding is that it is like Reddit, but with thumbnails. That seems (to me anyway) on the right side of the line.

Sites like FunnyJunk drive no traffic anywhere. They're built to suck in other people's content and keep all the traffic on the FunnyJunk servers.