Good analysis on the blockchain comparison, and you are right: in this sense it's not creating new tokens, it's purely about the distribution. The creation is secure, but the ethical dilemma remains.

From a certain perspective, every time a movie plays in the theater, they are double spending the original work.

Not exactly. You paid for the ticket (I hope) and some of the money goes to the people who created it. You are an informed purchaser: you know that you are buying something meant for mass consumption and that other people are going to view it.

The example that resonates with me more is the artwork example. If you create a painting, and sell it to someone under the assumption that it was the only painting of it's kind, the purchaser would be pretty unhappy if they find out that you are actually mass producing the exact same painting. The purchaser would feel cheated (and rightly so) as they thought the value that they bought was unique.

Most of my point in this post boils down to the problem of being an informed purchaser, or an informed voter. You may change your voting behaviour if you knew it was a copy paste job, or if it was a steemit exclusive.