This is the conclusion I'm generally coming to, with regard to creative works. I think this is reasonable, in the same vein as HN really advocates you form a st

This is the conclusion I'm generally coming to, with regard to creative works. I think this is reasonable, in the same vein as HN really advocates you form a startup in a space where there is a unique opportunity-- you won't be able to be self-sustaining with your own product unless there are people willing to pay for it. Perhaps this is why being bought is such a common and lauded occurrence. Your startup was a demonstration and valuation of your skills, before finding profitable work in a similar field. Yet I wanted to draw attention to specifically the hypocrisy of our implicitly boxing things like magazine sales and advertisements together as having 'viable market' and photo licensing as somehow not. In regard to the original article, maybe the photographer is being unrealistic in trying to sell sunset photos per se, but he certainly has the right to not let others profit off of his work in any part (a la the GPL), in his case, at least without compensation. And in the long run, pure digital copying will change a lot of how we perceive creative works, but also traditional areas like magazines, movies, textbooks, games, etc. We need to accept a world when all these items are free, and understand how they will become sustainable. Let's not assume because small photographers and artists are the easiest to duplicate that we can criticize their marketing strategies and leave these larger industries alone.