Last week it was a big week for intellectual property laws. As many know, there where the SOPA and PIPA law proposed and about to get elected in the USA. 
For more in depth information about these proposals, I would like to refer to the Wikipedia page about these. This time the page is in white instead of black.

One thing what was very surprising to me was that there where not many words from the photograph community. 
We all know that the major backers from these 2 proposals where the movie and the music industry’s. But nothing from the photograph industry.

Why is this?

Because when there’s something for sure, but the photographic industry is one of the hardest hit by piracy. 
Since the beginning of the Internet copying from photos have been everywhere and digital imagining have had a very huge influence on this industry. See the concurring events this week on the bankruptcy of Kodak.

By why didn’t we care?

I think a main thing about is that we learned how to deal with it or go bankrupt. 
This is an ongoing thing in our industry that even doesn’t make the news anymore. A very interesting episode of The Grid podcast I heard the other day was actually talking about it. If you have a spare moment download this one from iTunes or watch it straight on the Grid page.

Why we should care.

In my opinion it is very important to care about these points. Because this would affect our industry profoundly. Not only for defending your work (are they your photos or the model’s or property’s?) but as well what happens if you use a certain photographic style.

My opinion was that these proposals are very bad for everyone except for the movie and music studios. These groups can better be putting some of their money into development and listening to the customers how they use it and for what price