hi everyone

Happy New Year

I have read with interest the various views on this thread.

Can I say that my wife is a professional photographer and we have been here before....a sort of deja vu for us. I will add before it gets too confusing, I mean with pictures NOT music.

But the princple ( if not the practice)is the same.

Clearly in both cases stealing someone else's work and selling for profit is not only immoral it is illegal.

However in the case of my wife it was many years ago when the Internet was new and policing was conspicuous by it's absence.

Photographers like my wife were naive to what could happen to their work.

The problem then was that they had to first of all prove in court that anyone copying something displayed on the web was illegal, and this took years to prove through the courts. I will say here that the American law was more severe on this than our own British one and we lagged behind more than somewhat.

Finally it was proved and accepted that photographs are intellectual property and although the picture might be published it still remains the property of the photographer.

I will say that this is a very simple explaination of a very complex and convoluted process.

So there is no doubt at all that downloading without permission of the legal owner of the property is a crime.

But ...........the tortuous and costly route to this has made not one jot of difference in all but a very few cases.

There are a numbers of reasons which simplified are :-

1. It is difficult to trace the perpetrators
2. Few lawyers find it attractive
3. It is hugely expensive for the claimant.

There is really no protection from the law that is financially satisfactory for struggling photographers and musicians.

It is a moral situation - you either choose not to do it or you contact the rightful owner and ask permission.

Obviously in my own postion it is clear where I stand.

But as someone has already said above, the real position is not as black or white as I have had to portray it. There are many shades of grey that cloud the issue.

One thing is certain though.....it will continue and if anything get worse.

Cheers

MikeL