Couldn't agree with you more, but photography is one of the least understood 'businesses' out there, and we are some of the largest parties that makes it worse, as you mentioned. It isn't a good plan, but as a photographic educator as well, very few professional photographers actully has a plan to begin with.

As far as the $14,000,000 goes, that would be difficult, but attainable. There are several case law suits that have attained that ammount, although rare, this is concidered the cap. It isn't easy your right, since even our own court system and judges don't fully understand and cannot standardize "usage and value" of, well, art and imagery. It's intellectual and creative property, and everyone knows how hard it is to define a realistic value on that. At the very least, I know that I can get you for $1500, and it's easier to get that in court!

It is a lot like the music industry, only there are no true organized unions or associations that pull that much clout like the music companies like RCA, Sony, Virgin, etc. Those corporations drive everything, rights, pricing usage etc. As a contrast, it's some of the artists that are driving the changes in getting their work into as many venues as possible, like RadioHead. We don't have that; we have the opposite! We have ASMP, PPA, APA and others trying to represent us/members, lobby for us and continue to educate everyone on value, usage, fees and pricing. We as photographers need to get on board and learn for our selves what our imagery is worth.

Truth be told, there are more people that will rationalize buying a cheap image or free image that is of truly poor quality and style/design/creativity than people that would think it though and license an image of high production, creative and visual quality. I, as a business, market to them, and get paid a lot more for it, and work less. Work smarter:not harder.