Punishing users for sharing behavior that is normal on every other network will not work or make this place popular. Downvoting for SEO reasons is a bad strategy. Normal reddit and facebook users won't understand it.
If you want to go on a crusade, post what you explained here in their posts comments.
I don't want to go on a "crusade", and when I do downvote, I post a comment as to why I have done that, I will say things like "article appears to be stolen from http://xyz/0/sfs/xyx.html
Sometimes the author will say "so, whats wrong with stealing content?" ...and I will explain. Look at my replies.. I'm constantly commenting. I'm doing it again, right now. :)
The crusade comment was directed more at the abuse brigade police force that is forming.
That's the way to do it. Inform instead of attack. It will only take a few comments like yours to get people to add commentary.
I think that would be the best way, post a commentary (doesn't have to be long) about the link itself and the individuals personal thoughts of the article.
I'm kinda in the same place I won't down vote copy paste content but I also won't up vote it, which kinda sucks when it's a decent article. So if someone merely linked it with their own little write up, that I would up vote for. If it was A) a good find and B) a tiny bit of effort was put into the commentary and it doesn't look like a 2 year old wrote it.
There are differences in sharing. Posting stuff other people have made to Steemit is fine. When you share something you haven't made, you're getting rewarded for sharing it, not for the content itself.
But:
Original content and shared content can coexist on Steemit as long as it's clear who originally created it.
I agree with all those points. The only point I am trying to get across in addition to that, is that normal users are going to share stuff anyway, and attacking or policing them is a waste of energy.
The solution is to make embedding easier than plagiarizing, because embedding content automatically credits the author, provides a link, and increases the authors traffic stats...