An open letter

to the television, music and motion picture industry:

I support intellectual property laws. If you make a move or television show, publish a book or record a CD you do so in order to make a profit and anyone who pirates that work is stealing as surely as if they put a gun to your face and took your wallet and watch.

However I strongly urge you to think of video clips posted on sites like YouTube as free advertising rather than copyright infringement.

I can well understand why you would not want entire episodes of television shows or whole movies broken down and posted so that someone could watch the entire thing that way, but clips of movies, TV shows or music videos are a different matter.

Again, that represents the equivalent of millions of dollars worth of free advertising.

Be grateful and do not sue or use software which automatically deletes copyrighted material without making a judgement as to whether it is doing you far more good than harm.