With my deepest apologies to all the wonderful people and artists who had one or two nice words to say about my work, and those who were kind enough to watch me - and of course, the ones that I watched - I am taking down both my image manipulation and digital photography galleries.

I am doing this in solidarity to the artists whose works have been and are still being affected by the absurd copyright protection policies that plague the world of art, by the use of unjust authoritarian methods that do not distinguish between what is a real violation of copyright and what is a fair use of material provided especially for the creation of derivative works.

I am all for protecting an artist's ownership of his work. I'm an artist myself and understand any creator's concern about not having his work appropriated and/or misused. But all the fuss about the "artist's own protection" is going out of hand. It's not about protecting the artist any more. It's all about denying access to art and to the promotion of ideas through exchange and creativity. It's also all about appropriating a public good such as civilisation and imposing on it extremely prohibitive laws, which have nothing to do with the essence of creation or the evolution of culture.

A great site that every artist should take a look at is this: [link] Please take a moment to visit it, if you haven't already done so. This is how art should be conceived of and treated. This is justice and civilisation, this is the future.

Again with my sincere apologies, I am saying good-bye.