You actually make a pretty good point about how things that were printed just a couple decades ago are now readily available to millions that were not part of the original intended readership. I hadn't really thought about that aspect of it.
FWIW, even if I am in a position to do so, I would NEVER alter someone else's extract or transcription without checking with them first.
My personal practice with using these materials is to first put them into my own genealogy database (currently running Legacy-9 and loving it!). I will then often but not always upload some or all to my Family Tree at Ancestry, MyHeritage, and now here on WikiTree. But I do not transcribe completely, but rather simply summarize without using names. If it's an on-line obit from a funeral home or newspaper, I download a PDF or JPG version to my computer, and then in the on-line trees/profiles, I add the summary, links to the original when possible, and a note that I can provide a complete copy upon request. In fifteen-years-plus of working on-line, I've only had a handful of people request actual PDF or jpg file, and it was always a family member that I was already aware of.
With all that said, I still hold to my underlying thoughts that facts published publicly, especially to the "world-wide-web", are, simply put, fair game. My choice, and apparently yours as well, to withhold those facts, remains a choice, and not an obligation, in the philosophical sense anyway.
Thanks for your response!