> $200 for a $100 photo is totally reasonable; $1000 and he has no moral argument.
How do you figure? I think 10x is an entirely reasonable penalty for stealing* someone's work instead of paying for it lawfully. The MPAA demanded $30,000 for a $0.99 song, which I would say is completely unreasonable. But 10x seems pretty inline with a non-excessive penalty.
$200 probably wouldn't cover lawyers fees. From an amoral perspective, there's a simple cost function: (cost to buy) vs (chance of being caught * cost of damages). If you don't make the cost of damages high enough then the behavior will continue. [0]
This assumes all violators are doing it willfully. I imagine most restaurant owners that make a Squarespace site in an afternoon have no idea you can't just copy something from Google Images.
He's licensing full-resolution digital images for around $400 a pop, so I'd say that asking infringers for a $1000 payment is easily fair and probably far too low. You are stealing his work and lawyers are not cheap.
1) There was no legal expense
2) He catches at least 50% of the violators
In that case, he would at least make as much as if there were no violators. However, he has legal costs, and probably only catches a fraction of the violators.
So the equation should be something close to:
(Price charged for violation - legal fees) * % chance of being caught = Original price of image
How do you figure? I think 10x is an entirely reasonable penalty for stealing* someone's work instead of paying for it lawfully. The MPAA demanded $30,000 for a $0.99 song, which I would say is completely unreasonable. But 10x seems pretty inline with a non-excessive penalty.