Quote:
Originally Posted by ggccg
Your prejudices lead you to read too much into what I wrote. I didn't ask for an apology nor do I expect one to ever be offered. The point was (in the context of the post I was replying to regarding people suing) that when people who are in the wrong are belligerent when they should be conciliatory, things that ought to be easily settled get out of hand and end up in litigation.
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In my experience this is true. When I caught a T-shirt printer using one of my images and was met with a belligerent attitude, I turned him over to my IP attorney. It cost him about $75,000 to settle out of court. I talked to him on the phone after the settlement and he said he steals photos all the time. He said it's cheaper to steal the images and risk getting caught, than to pay people for their images.
I took a much more lenient stance the three times I caught non-profits using my photos (all were for Calendars). I settled with them paying my standard usage rates for calendars with limited distributions and limited rights. If they had contacted me first and I believed in their cause, I would have granted permission to use my photos for a $1.