Dear Samuel — Congratulations! You have stumbled upon model that suits you both financially and personally. I am an IP lawyer, so let me play devil’s advocate: would your model continue to work if everyone adopted it? I doubt it. Your success depends upon the positive feedback loop of extraordinary exposure and use — extraordinary spin — driven by the fact that the use of the photographs of other photographers costs money. If all of the photographs taken by photographers were free of charge, then the extra exposure you garner from offering your work for free relative to the exposure garnered by the photographs of others that are also offered for free would disappear. The loop would still exist, of course, but it would no longer have the extraordinary spin. So, next time you see a photographer who requires payment for use of his or her photographs, smile, and let them know they have your full support!