Is it? dA is full of artists selling their art and users buying it. It's full of Patreons, donation buttons, etc. See Twitch for what successful monetization of this sort of audience looks like.
A lot of that commerce happens in violation of copyright, and sometimes in violation of other laws too; it can fly under the radar when it's person-to-person but would be harder for the company to monetize.
Is Twitch profitable? Have they had to face a serious copyright infringement lawsuit from a game maker yet?
That doesn't sound right. dA is the original source for a lot of the work being sold. I'm not familiar enough with the community to know if they're being used as a black market but I know for certain that lots of artists use it as a sales gallery.
I'm not convinced that there has been sufficient litigation to show that fanart is actually copyright infringement. As I understand it, there's a district split on the issue and the Supreme Court hasn't said anything. The cases are also very old, mostly predating the concept of fanart.
Most cases these days are predicated on whether or not something is fair use, but don't explore whether or not copyright was infringed in the first place.
All in all, it's good for money to be poured in here, because it means the defense will have adequate legal resources to set the right precedent.
