People seem to like downvoting you. Anyway, I agree with you on the mostly-the-same part, and I think it's a derivative work anyway. The article's "You're just copying what was copied" is an interesting argument that I agree with but it's not really relevant to the copyright laws--again applying to a programming example, just because you bought a licensed copy doesn't mean someone can copy your copy without a license.

Do I think people should be able to make pixelized versions of photos for whatever purpose? Sure. Do I think the current law would be okay with that? No.