Bugging out: How rampant online piracy squashed one insect photographer (Ars Technica)
As many in the free-software world know, copyright is, at best, a double-edged sword. Copyright law is what allows the various free and open-source licenses, but enforcing that copyright (i.e. adherence to the license) is expensive and time-consuming. Ars Technica has the tale of a bug photographer who details his woes in trying to protect his photographs. "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."