Why would you lie?

From what everyone is saying it seems to me that two of the strongest Universal Laws are underwritten into the dynamics of this situation.

On the one hand the copycat is influenced by the lack of Fear ( at a very primitive level it's basic obvious danger, consequences etc) probably never had that dreaded lawyers letter hit the doormatt...yet. "What do I lose if I did do this?"

And on the other hand is the greed aspect. The inner dialog probably goes something like this: "My house, my rules, my chair, my table, my computer, my images, my words etc" at a primitive level it is very territorial with no sense of personal boundaries.. "What do I gain if I do do this?"

What is missing is rational thought.
Usually a these laws balance out in a persons general personality as 'in life' I'm pretty sure the copycat would not even consider literally stealing or even borrowing without permission but the psychology of the internet and personal boundaries are hard (for some people) to define the difference between right and wrong.

*The copycat is almost certain to be 90% what use to be called a 'Troll'

I'm pretty sure that this is why RSS and share buttons were created for. On the one hand you must be a little flattered, but also a sense of being cheated.

Part of me used to think that, you were not really successful as an artist unless someone tried or in fact did steal your work. If you could control the situation, then it would not be that bad to have one person take your work. But many? It's really hard to believe that there are that many people in the world that would do this. I think I can now understand a little more why search engines like Google create the algorithms they do (seriously). But it's all too little too late. Because I think its about the person themselves, as you said, and not the work they do, the fame they're seeking, or the money they want.

That's correct, like the 'no right clicking' options on some pages. It basically is something people like artists might do to protect images etc on site pages but with all the apps available it became almost a waste of time.
So either the artist would have to slap large words across images like 'Example' or 'Copyright' actually over the image or just not display it.

I do watermark my images as well. I use my real name, written in Japanese Font, and then put that over crucial areas in my artwork. When it is almost transparent, you can still see it, but to remove it would destroy the art piece itself.

An interesting thing I did see though, was on Mashable. Two of the posts I read from them were only able to be copied if you took a screenshot of it all. They had taken their post and created a slideshow out of it. The only area you could copy from was these intros and they had almost no info on them. Unfortunately, it also makes things harder for those of us, like me, that use these blogs as a reference. I was looking at info on Google+1, and thought I would add their post as reference in another thread I was writing. I always make sure that whoever I reference from, they get a link back to their site/s. So why can't someone else adopt the same attitude?

When you get right down to it, I guess it's just the choices and decisions that people make.
I'm pretty sure you will find a bullet proof way of getting it sorted out (until technology moves on again) I know that on some websites you can get a 'terms and conditions' page drafted for websites for free.
Basically the one I saw (I will try to find a link) you fill in the spaces and then it generates the page. If you have already got that page in place then maybe just have links to it. With severe warnings of punishment:

LOL that would be perfect I think. But some have a total disregard for that message in any case. I see it almost daily, depending on what search I am doing on Google. For instance, I see so many people taking advantage of material that is by rights not allowed to be copied that can get you into a heck of a lot more trouble than copying and pasting someone else's content, and no matter what the repercussions, they keep at it. It makes me wonder just how far copyright law actually goes to protect someone when they create a service or product for the net.

It's all about taking the steps towards. From a legal aspect I guess the law would say that you need to have terms and conditions on your sites along with privacy policies etc, and if a limited company people have to be able to access info regarding the company where it registered etc, so by that same rational, if someone disregards the message of the disclaimer then your within your rights to start action against people provided you can prove certain things. I have posted my 10 posts so I can post links now yey! Have a look at the info here it may well help you: Website-law.co.uk - The web law blog some of it makes sense.

When it comes to money a small amount of people have no borderline or morals.

Remember the second Ice age movie? There was a character that was prepared to sell one of his family members for a grape. He went throughout the movie trying to sell people things they did not need and had no scruples about how he did it or what he said to do it.

It may have been hilarious to watch him "operate", but the sad reality is that there are real people like that. People that would do anything or say anything to make a fast one and its scary because sometimes its hard to see whether or not they are being sincere or not. I think, all we can do in the end is keep our eyes open and try not to fall for any of their schemes, as well as try show others their true colors.

My opinion - they are LAZY!!

Riding off other peoples hard work and effort is easy. I sometimes wish I had no conscience! It would make my life easier