On another note, I think I have figured out what their game is. The URL for thumbnails pages includes us_ad. I think they are detecting IP addresses, deciding where in the world they are, and aiming advertising at them. Never mind that the advertising is all in Russian. They haven't figured that out yet. But it's the ads they're selling, not the art. The art simply gets exposure. But by not being attributed, it doesn't do much good. If they attribute, it helps. But they're not pretending it's their own art work. This is simply their collection of favorites. If you want to take advantage of the free publicity, put your web site or gallery URL on all your pictures. In the meantime, all the investigating we do just gives them hits, and they like that! The best handle would be to band together and get the EU to insist they respect intellectual property as a condition for joining. Some of us might even choose to post on Russian web sites, but the way things are now, all that would do would be to mean more ripoffs. Anyway, those are my thoughts. If we are going to continue to monitor the situation, I recommend we formally volunteer for specific web sites, and other people simply refrain from surfing there, to cut back on their hits.

Pat