While the stereotypical copyright story pits private users against large corporate rights-holders, real-world cases are often more complex. After all, most content creators are private, and many content users—as well as content infringers—are corporate. The corporate infringements are the most frustrating, as I live off photo licenses issued to corporations in the same sectors.
Licensing only works in a world where commercial content users like these must obtain permission from content creators. As long as I have the right to dispense permission, I am in a position to earn back the roughly $50 I spend to create each photograph. Money is time; I use my time to invest in more images, and the cycle continues. This is how copyright is supposed to work, and most of my photographs could not exist without it.
Today my photographs would not exist without the Internet, either. Before any of my work appeared in the glossy pages of nature magazines, it was broadcast in informal discussion forums, shared through e-mail, and posted to the webpages of university laboratories. My first paying clients, back when I was a hobbyist, found me on Google. Most of my current clients still do. Without early encouragement from the Internet, I would never have transitioned to professional photography. The Internet has been good to me.
To recap—Copyright: great! Internet: great! Where the two intersect, what could possibly go wrong?
The perpetual battle
For a concise idea of what could go wrong, let me indulge in a list of recent venues where commercial interests have used my work without permission, payment, or even a simple credit:
Billboards, YouTube commercials, pesticide spray labels, website banners, exterminator trucks, t-shirts, iPhone cases, stickers, company logos, eBook covers, trading cards, board games, video game graphics, children’s books, novel covers, app graphics, alt-med dietary supplement labels, press releases, pest control advertisements, crowdfunding promo videos, coupons, fliers, newspaper articles, postage stamps, advertisements for pet ants (yes, that’s a thing), canned food packaging, ant bait product labels, stock photography libraries, and greeting cards.