I appreciate the sentiment, and small-time artists do get way too much shit, but you are somewhat underrepresenting the mechanisms we have in place. YouTube holds the ad revenue generated by disputed content in escrow until the dispute is resolved. DMCA requests, as much as I don’t like them, are rather effective in this day and age.
bigger corps can just steal shit basically full throttle, if not in actuality, than in likeness, and, through monopolization of the mechanisms of distribution, like with music.
In this particular context big corporations have to be the most careful because they have the most to lose. Remember the Obama “HOPE” ad? This thing? All of these were serious Ws for relatively unknown photographers.