After all, that photographer or 'shopper deserves to be compensated for the time they spent getting that shot or creating that image... and every time you - yes YOU, you ungrateful bastard! - load that web page, you're starving their families!
News flash : the creators are (in non-internet cases, anyway) paid to Create. Once the work Exists, where it goes after that is ultimately up to the fans of that work - not the cartels that have taken control of music, television and film. You think the actors and musicians will see a penny of any money the cartels extort in the form of media taxes, lawsuits, etceteras?
Yeah, musicians and authors do make royalties on their works - and one day, somebody will figure out a meaningful, useful way to extend that concept to the internet so that the content creators get paid. Until then, BS like the .ca "media tax" is as much a solution as the present (see timestamp) state of the proposed US "health care reform" legislation.
We've had The Web for, like, more than fifteen years - economies have risen and fallen, wars fought and won (or lost).. innumerable cultural and technological milestones and yet nobody has figured out a way to make money over the internet? What gives?
Okay yeah we've had the wheel for over five thousand years and we still can't build a shopping cart that rolls straight, but that's neither here nor there...