Maybe. I'm not sure why that matters though. Better to be hated than not even noticed.
> and lack self-preservation
Arguments like this confuse me. Copyright infringement is everywhere. Not just among companies, but also among individuals.
Any time someone draws fan art of the Mario and posts it on this internet, this is illegal copyright infringement.
But basically nobody ever gets sued for that kind of stuff, unless you get huge and bothersome enough to be noticed.
And if you've gotten to that point, you've already basically won. And you can just fix the issue later, if they actually bother telling you to stop. But it doesn't matter, because you have already found success.
Just asking? How on earth can an entire ecosystem be so damn tone-deaf and lack self-preservation?