I spotted this article on the BBC news site regarding your rights as a photographer. I've never personally been stopped but I've had more than just 'funny' looks shot in my general direction before whilst taking pictures. To me it just illustrates how paranoid, reactionary and ill-informed the people my this little island can be, with the over-inflated terrorist risk touted by the government and the police force, the paedophile-paranoia of the country's Daily Mail readers, and their shared lack of common sense. The short-sighted police stop and search powers only make this worse.

Anyway here is the petition the article mentions. I'd normally doubt that people take much notice of these petitions (most of them being puerile or for purely comedic value) but that fact that this issue has been raised by an MP persuaded me to sign it. If you don't try it'll never happen!

This Orphan Works thing in the US is kinda worrying. As if it needed to be repeated, but America, you're fucked. I well, I say that, but look at what happened with the Writers Guild strike earlier in the year. Now imagine that it wasn't just writers but all artists working in all sorts of media even just for a week. For example, no writers or journalists to fill our magazines and newspapers, no photographers or illustrators fleshing out the articles and written pieces, no designers to put it together.

Hmmm!

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