Welcome aboard. Saw some of your comments on the upvote/downvote debate thread going on and checked out your intro here.
Hope you're not getting too discouraged already, but likewise it's important to set realistic expectations!
The Steem platform is a bit anarchist at heart. Everything is driven by the votes of the community. Therefore it is in some ways less resistant to content theft. There is no way to request any central authority to remove a post that is plagiarized or stolen from your content. There is no way for an account to be closed or removed for violating any terms of service. For some folks this is a plus as they know they're not at the whims of YouTube, Twitter, FB, etc. who could demonetize or delete them at a moments notice.
On the Steem platform it is entirely up to you, the community at large, and your fanbase to take the action of down voting (flagging) content that may be pirating you or others. This can at least remove the rewards, reduce visibility, and lower the posters reputation.
There are organizations, community driven, to assist if need be. One such is @steemcleaners who would assist if a plagiarist is reported to them.
For a Steem based video solution check out d.tube
I'm also not fully negative on bot voting, although I believe it should still be curated bot voting. I do have certain authors that I use the steemvoter service to automatically upvote for me. I view it as a Patreon type use of the Steem system. If each of my votes is about .05 cents and the person posts a couple times a day, I know I'm "pledging" about $3 a month to support them. I'll adjust based on if content changes, post frequency, they conclude a certain project or funding goal, etc. But bots in and of themselves are not purely evil in my opinion.
Also, in order to have any impact bots need to have Steem Power behind them. The chief protection in the Steem system is the fact that it is stake weighted. Essentially 1 Steem = 1 vote. An army of valueless bot votes does little to distort the earnings or visibility of posts and content.
Again, I hope your first views haven't been too negative. There is a lot of potential here on a platform that essentially cuts out all the middlemen. But it's the "wild west" right now for sure. Any questions feel free to ask and I'll do my best to help.
WOW! Thanks for the detailed feedback Bryan. The Wild Wild West indeed!
Your description does make sense, generally the overall voting system by a hopefully non biased community will even things out naturally. I understand it's only the beginning really so we have to dive in head first to see what works and what doesn't. I'm going to stick around for sure and see the potential this has to offer. Thanks again man, appreciate the feedback.
Bryan! Have you looked at Dtube? It is RIDDEN with pirated movies that people are making money off. It's a disgrace. I'm really disappointed man!