Er you are not being moderate. Your ideas are to my mind a tad extreme.
And this particular quote is ironically,a perfect example of hyperbole.
In case you hadn't noticed, caring about one particular subject does not stop you caring about other aspects of life which may be less or more important. And as it happens, if you do not earn money from one's work, putting food on your table gets a bit tricky. Local supermarkets do not accept bylines in exchange for groceries. 
What I said was you cannot patent software like you can gadgets. Software is usually protected by copyright.
"Within European Union member states, the EPO and other national patent offices have issued many patents for inventions involving software since the European Patent Convention (EPC) came into force in the late 1970s. Article 52 EPC excludes "programs for computers" from patentability (Art. 52(2)) to the extent that a patent application relates to a computer program "as such" (Art. 52(3))." Though some companies have tried and succeeded to finagle patents for software.
Not really what I said. So was no-one involved in creating these open source initiatives, not employed by anyone else. As it's easy to do free work if you are being subsidised by a day job. Now if you dismiss patents and copyright a lot of people in work, suddenly won't be.
In the US patents are awarded for software too. Several of my coworkers have been awarded patents as part of their work developing software. Unfortunately, none of them have really benefited from their innovation because the company owns their work.
Actually do you know what would solve a lot of problems with copyright and patents? Ignore the crazy American legal system which allows these abuses to take place. It's far less of an issue in rest of the world, just as suing Raleigh, a bike company for an accident caused by the rider cycling a night without lights or MacDonalds getting done by someone who spilt a hot coffee over themselves whilst driving. Here in the UK, the driver would simply get done for careless driving and the cyclist told off for riding withoutl ights.
There is a lot of craziness in this world, but the McDonalds Coffee one is not a good example.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0122-11.htm I've never heard of the cyclist story. I guess the UK doesn't have frivolous lawsuits. That must mean you guys are better than everyone else. ;-)
You really think a high quality copy cannot be made of your prints? Of course it can. Technology is quite clever now. 
Lots of people have spent a lot of money on fake works of art. And no I was not referring to stock imagery - which actually demands pretty high levels of quality. And the beauty [and drawback for some] of digital, is that copying does not degrade information, unlike analogue data recordings.
Don't agree.
"Amazon wasn't able to patent online shopping because 500 people invented it at the same time," was one of several inaccurate statements. Try again.
Amazon WAS awarded a patent for the "invention" of one-click shopping in the US. That is what I was referring to. Later that patent was reviewed and some aspects of the patent were rescinded.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0122-11.htm I guess the UK doesn't have frivolous patents. That must mean you guys are better than everyone else. ;-)
Copyright and patents are a good idea in principle. So why do I have to suggest a better solution as I already approve in principle of this system despite its flaws. The US allowing just about anything to be patented is the real issue.
Lots of things are good in principle, but they turn out to be bad in practice. Increases in penalties for drunk driving resulted in increased incidence of hit and run. Sometimes things don't have the positive effect you are looking for. When this happens, you need to change the rules. You have repeatedly mentioned reforming, but you have never said anything about how to do it.
Seth Godin wrote an interesting article on motivation a while back and spoke about very similar things.
The purpose was for those who do create to be able to benefit from their work and to prevent others taking advantage of them. People do object to themselves being exploited. I'm not money motivated, but I'm buggered if someone else is going to profit out of my labour with recompensing me. People do not feel exploited when adding to wikipedia, but if Wikipedia stated charging money and made billionaires out of their business, then people would be far less inclined to help.
My girlfriend's uncle is typical of those who do photography as a hobby and are not bothered about getting paid for it and as a result is thoroughly exploited by some businesses who now do not have to pay a pro to do it for them. Yet he can only do this as he had a well paid job already. Now if the photographers offered to do his job for nothing as it was fun, he'd be out of a job and would have to charge for his photography and he'd be really pissed off.
It sounds like you better get out of the photo business fast. It is obviously a sinking ship. Really, it is! Unless you differentiate your photography as a value added SERVICE, the low cost of equipment and the reasonably high quality of amateurs will drive you into poverty. Copyright and/or patent won't save you or the photographers who want to sell their intellectual property. It was put on the path to ruin by technology innovations, just like John Henry, the Steel Driving Man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI0D44zYP-Q
