[Anne Hall]

I will search out some current sources to back up my statements that Bill Gates purchased DIGITAL rights to the world's art treasures. As I recall from the articles I read going back at least five, maybe seven years, worried observers thought by owning the digital rights that Bill Gates would be able to prevent other interested parties from being able to use DIGITAL images without paying him/his company royalties. Much like Michael Jackson owning rights to the Beatles' Apple music library (please don't jump on me if I don't have the terminology correct, as my background is in print publishing not music.) So no one can play or record a Beatles song without paying Michael Jackson a cut.

And please don't jump on me in any event. I meant to convey that we all might share an interest in making sure that we can continue to have access to things we want to. Seven years ago who would have anticipated that we would rely so heavily on the computer as a visual communication tool? Few did but Bill Gates was among them. It is of course quite possible that Bill Gates did not pursue the business strategy that was feared.

And Bill Gates does inspire fear. He is a formidable competitor and he has the resources of a multibillion-dollar company to back his ideas, however farfetched they may seem on the surface. From my experience as a Microsoft customer for more than 20 years, I truly believe that he is such a driven entrepreneur that if he thought there was a way to make money from the DIGITAL rights he owns, he/his company would not worry much about who was inconvenienced.

The issue is similar in one way to that which Napster raised, that is, people liked being able to download and share whatever songs they wanted, but the music industry didn't want them to do this because they would lose money. And yet it is different than Napster, because we are talking about access to images that have been in the public domain. It would be a change to have to pay for them.

I am not a Mac user. But I am a sadder and wiser Forum user since my comment provoked the responses it did. I just wished to alert an online community of people who care about art to a potential threat to some of the freedom we enjoy in viewing and using images of the world's art treasures.