What is the difference between a bicycle and a picture?

So what is the difference between a bicycle left outside a house and a picture on a webpage? This has been worrying me some time. I work for a company that provides images for books, newspapers,magazines, company reports, TV stills, adverts etc etc in fact anyone who wants pictures of our specialist areas comes to us, negotiates a Licence fee for the use of that image in a particular way. We take some of the money for overheads ands admin(including my salary) and a sizeble chunk goes to the creator of that image, the photographer. The copyright of the image belongs to the photographer and we just market the temporary, limited use of it to our clients in exchange for the licence fee.
Now if I leave my bike outside my house and an unkind person removes it I can involve the police who can pursue the "borrower", charge them and there is a possibilty that the bicycle thief will be convicted. Even if the bike is returned I suspect that they could still be charged. We all know the thief shouldn't have removed my bike and of course we never even consider committing such a crime.

So, I repeat, what is the difference between a bicycle and an image on a website. That image belongs to the photographer. His livelihood, his mortgage, the food in the mouths of his children all depend on him having some return for his work. So why do we all consider it fine to "borrow" images from wherever we find them and put them on our blogs?

I know why we do it. Every morning as soon as my eyes open, I log onto the computer while the kettle is still boiling and can't wait to see what my No. 1 blogger has written about. Not only does she write, she provides me with all sorts of interesting info and images. Sometimes she writes about things she has made and delights us with her very able images of these crafts. Sometimes she goes for a walk with her camera and shares what she has seen. She also informs us about the happenings in her area and ably illustrates what she writes with well-researched pictures. And everyone I know grabs an image of the bookcover when they write about a recent read that they have enjoyed.

We are slowly being educated to understand that we must pay licence fees for software. We know that we shouldn't download music without paying for it, because just as photographers need to live, so do musicians and song-writers.

So why is it OK for us to "borrow" pictures? Or is it?

[Note: This is not a personal attack on any particular blogger just the ramblings of another intermittent blogger who tries to steer clear of using the images of others but isn't always successful]

I'm warped!

Finally I've warped my 80 cm rigid heddle loom more or less properly.
I think that much as I yearn to be a weaver I am probably not meant to to be one. I'm definitely a freeform person and with weaving you have to be precise.

Invaders repelled

I've decided to go for the scorched earth policy where my front garden is concerned.
The reason for this is what I think is Geranium macrorrhizum with the common name of Bigroot Geranium. This is not the showy bright red lollipop flower that gets bunged into pots in Mediterranean lands this is the perennial geranium that is related, I think, to the cranesbill family.

If I tell you that the blurb about this plant suggests ...

Propagation:
Division in spring or autumn. Very easy, virtually every bit of a divided plant, whether it has roots or not, will grow away and produce roots then I think you will understand how I have been fighting a running battle for the past few years.

I am definitely one of those people who advocates a "natural" looking garden if that means that I can look at it and have to do absolutely nothing. However, this thing has been threatening to cover the car, the house, hubby, rabbit and me and all in about the blink of an eye. Our front garden is mainly "crazy paving". There are borders around the edge of the pocket handerkerchief-sized patch garden and what the previous encumbent called her "flower basket". I have to confess that my mother and I succeeded in demolishing the handle of that monstrosity within a couple of years of us moving here. It is now just a circular bed in the middle.

Here are a few more pics to show you what I have done in my onslaught and what is still left to do.

I've not been turned to stone....

I just seem to have been so busy. Grabbing a few moments here and there on the train to and from work I have managed to read two books by Canadian author Margaret Laurence.
Both books are from her Manawaka series, the first being JEST OF GOD which could be included in my collection of "spinster" reads. The most recent is STONE ANGEL, the life of Hagar told by Hagar herself. We flit seamlessly backwards and forwards in time just as the memory does.