"Maybe that got me some traffic. But is it still fair? "
"That may not be illegal and may not be plagiarism, but is it right?"
In my opinion, yes... it's both fair & right and here's why.
As it stands right now in the legal system, content curation and fair use pretty much go hand in hand when done in accordance to the 4 mail pillars of "fair use" under intellectual property law.
This means that if the material is used the right way, regardless of what monetary rewards are acquired by the curator then there is no wrong being done. But the spirit of your point is made and I do understand it and I do agree with it to some degree but at the same time I do believe that using someone's content under the proper means is a benefit to both the curator and the original publisher.
I used to make video games for a living and I've had a few of my games stolen and pirated all over the internet, I know how it feels to not get your just rewards for all that hard work. But that being said, it comes with the territory and I know and accept that. That is my own point of view, I don't expect anybody else to share it, but bottom line is that we can't control ever aspect of what happens with the stuff we create and put out to the world.
So I guess to sum up this long response, though I agree with what you've said I stand by my own ideas as well and I do believe something should be set in place to give proper attribution to the source material of shared content here on steemit. The question then becomes how to do that... and I don't have the answer to it.