It depends if you count the ones that were settled behind NDAs with large companies with unknown amounts being paid out that are ticking time bombs waiting to go off in the future.
let's just count the ones we know about? you sound evasive;)
Remember the original poster said that any time my browser downloads a picture on any website (which is a technical requirement to show it) I am infringing on those rights. If that is US court opinioon that would be absolutely stupid.
Of course if you reshare some work that actually is somebody's property you can be totally infringing. Which makes total sense. Except when big tech does the same to us (LLM and diffusion training) it's suddenly ok and that's insane
Copyright is the right to make copies. The creator of a work has a government granted monopoly on that right.
When I download a picture from a website and save it to my machine, I am making a copy of it. If the photographer has not given me explicit permission to do so, then I have infringed on their rights by making an unauthorized copy of their work.
The mere existence of licenses like the creative commons refutes your argument. They would not be necessary if you could just download whatever without infringing copyrights.
Downloading a picture needs to happen to show it. Without it it cannot be shown. I'm sure courts figured out that viewing a picture via browser is not infringing.
You forgot the "save it to my machine" part which lets me view the picture whenever I want without visiting its creator's website repeatedly. This means I don't need to be exposed to ads, which in turn lowers the creator's income. It also means other people can get the picture from me rather from the creator. Even less ads and payments.
Obviously the creators want more money and control. Thus copies are only allowed to be made if it benefits them. Viewing a copy of the picture via the website might be permitted, but saving it or sharing it might not.
The truth is nobody really cares what creators want. People will save and share and edit and meme it all up because they can. It is natural. It is their delusional belief that they can control what others do with information that is out of touch with reality.
How did they turn out?