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From the article, some of his money comes from Youtube ads, which I don't think would exist if it weren't for traditional copyright laws. (ie, Youtube wouldn't be giving him a cut of the ad revenue if it weren't for copyright.)

Still... Kudos to him for not using draconian enforcement, yet still making lots of money.

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Similarly, he wouldn't get any money from people making commercials without copyright law. They would simply rip it off without asking.

The point is; no one would being paying anything unless it got so popular. And, it was allowd to get so popular because no one pettily went after "small fry" infringers. They let (encouraged probably) it go "viral". Let it be mixed, shared, performed, Let it become part of our culture, almost in The Commons.

And when it was good enough to be shared, massively, they reaped the just rewards.

Right, it's stupid to go after the small fry, but nor is this evidence that copyright in general should be abolished, as some think. The balance is somewhere in the middle.

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