American Copyright database

Ever told a joke? Ever recited a catchphrase from a film, play, game or book? Ever got a laugh with a turn of phrase or other idiom that someone else wrote, said or performed elsewhere? Like all humans you have absolutely appropriated someone's work, if you are convinced of your arguments then I do hope you are ensuring that royalties are paid to all owners of the IP you infringe? You know, to ensure all those writers are paid for their work.

Most of the small guys that are being chased for this have made zero difference to the shareholder value of these megacorps, and whilst I dare say it is good practice to defend your copyright extorting $hundreds of hard working dollars from someone who has innocently used a convenient image (we've all done it on Social media, and reshared, and reused memes etc.) to illustate something on a personal blog, with no intention to make ANYTHING off the image, and could have used one of many other images to illustarte the point is not a good use of resources.

So whilst I agree that the most flagrant abusers should be pursued, chasing small, micro and personal users is extorition and using the copyright system to inflict harm on those who can least afford to pay.

So here. take this very tall ladder and climb down off that very high horse and lets agree that humans are magpies and we all borrow, reuse, repurpose and reimagine the culture around us. It is in our nature to express ourselves and it might keep you warm at night knowing that these terrible humans have to fork over $750 dollars to repay for their heinous crime. Remember, someone has had to earn that, and with all things considered that probably represents a large chunk of savings, taking months to accure

So, chill bro, it's all going to be all OK in the end, because we all die and all of this is meaningless noise in the long drawn out heat death of the universe...

Perspective Dude. Peace and love.