You know what folks, as photographer nothing sucks more than seeing your work being represented as the work of someone else. I have several well-known photos here in town, recently I saw one of my photos being credited to someone else. My intellectual property was stolen. Unfortunately, the actual theft had never occurred. Why, the reason being is that the photo was still at the copiers. Luckily for me the person was never able to use my work, they were caught ahead of time. Unluckily for me, what this person did was not a crime. The work was never published, hence under the law, no crime. If this new amendment was added, then this would have been a crime.

My lawyer tells me that since there was no crime and no publishing of the work, I have no civil case. Also, the police were not able to confiscate the work. So who is to say that this individual will not try to do the same somewhere else.

While I do not agree with all points of this bill, I am a big fan of protecting intellectual property, especially my own, and hope that the law be updated for those who attempt to steal it.

dmk