I love photography. I love taking photos, I love processing them, I love having them printed and framing them. I love everything about it. I would love to make a living in photography.

Anyway, I have this one friend that I have a lot of photos of. Some were planned, some are just candids. Anyway, she has posted a bunch of them on the internet after re-processing them without asking me first. (Or even telling me.) It bothers me. Am I being overly sensitive?

Here's why I think it shouldn't bother me:
- They're photos of her. Why shouldn't she edit them?
- It's not like I'm making any money off them.
- The editing (mostly) looks just fine. Maybe not what I would have done, but they don't (usually) look worse.

Here's why it really does bother me:
- They're my photos. Why should she edit them without my permission?
- It is technically illegal. (Copyright!)
- I feel violated. Like I wrote and published a book and then she tore out the last chapter, replaced it with her own and put it back on the shelf without telling me. Or like I did a painting of a meadow and she painted a tree into it then hung it back up.

I think I'm going to ask her not to do it anymore tomorrow when we have dinner. I don't want her to take it the wrong way...but I really want her to know that it bothers me.

It bothers me in part because of this particular circumstance and in part because of the commonplace-ness of it all. Most of my friends just don't seem to get it that you can't just download someone's photo off the internet and re-edit it to suit you before you put it back up. (I mean, you can, but that doesn't make it right. And this coming from a huge fan of LOLcats... *sigh*) I even know someone who will do it for printed materials that will be used in her workplace!

I'm all for copyright reform and free use of information, but I'm also really into respect for other people's works. Meh. *shrug*