Properly registered copyrighted works invoke statutory damages which are designated by legislation. Several hundred thousand dollars per infringement. Legally

Properly registered copyrighted works invoke statutory damages which are designated by legislation. Several hundred thousand dollars per infringement. Legally speaking this is no different than you selling copied DVDs on the street corner and Sony catching wind and coming after you for damages. They're not going to ask for $75 (five times a $15 disc), they're going to ask for statutory damages for each infringement you've made (potentially per song for a CD, etc). This guy has just made a business out of monetizing that for clients who can't be bothered to do it for themselves. A true entrepreneur in the spirit of HN, find a niche that your clients don't want to do for themselves or are not capable of doing for themselves, and monetize it. This is much less cut-and-dry than patent trolling, where the real problem is that the patents should never have been issued in the first place. He's representing real clients whose works have really been infringed, and by statute they are entitled to large damages. If you want to fix that, go after the concept of statutory copyright damages. I love Democracy Now but if they want to use this guy's photos they should approach him for licensing, not just use them and cry about the damages when he or his lawyer comes after them. We do not need to set up a two-track system where Disney gets $300k per infringement and a small photographer gets $500 per infringement.