Aug 21, 2009: Whale of a High 5

[Undertoad]

Ruth, I shall take up a collection amongst the regulars and we shall pay for the week. Please forward an invoice. We highly prefer Paypal. Payment by cheque will have to be in US$, so if you require a cheque, please send along a rate in this currency.

I do wish you, and similar rights-clearing folks, would come up with a business model to support non-profit organizations that aren't major money makers. We are a money-losing operation, just a forum that shares 2000 views of such things. We earn about $15/month through google ads and overall operation is about $200/month. Payment of this fee will be double our gross earnings for the month.

Nevertheless, we are happy to be legal. And we would get very serious about legal use... if you guys would get serious about a fee structure to support us. It would allow us to get the facts right as well -- and to better credit you, and the photographers. This would help preserve your fee structure, as people would notice that sites are working within it.

If you hosted the sold images as well, that would give you a true count of views, and complete control of use. You could easily find the sites hotlinking it, and either prohibit it (creatively, with an alternative image!) or send them invoice letters as you have done here.

One of our alternatives is to reduce the image size or crop it until it's fair use. Nobody wants that, although more and more profitable websites are doing it.

If you want to see what happens to copyable rights-held property when the businesses don't care to support a sustainable model, look at the recording business. They started to offer rights-free downloads only last year. That means they spent roughly a decade fighting the tsunami coming their way, instead of working with it. During that time, consumers' needs were not actually being addressed. This fostered a community of piracy that has now killed the industry entirely.

Don't be like that, is merely my suggestion to the winds.

Tony

[xoxoxoBruce]

Payment of this fee will be double our gross earnings for the month.

Shouldn't that be gross costs?

Anyway, I'll reimburse you the £20, since it's my doing.