Tony,
you're absolutely right about stock houses. They have degraded the value of stock images to the point where you have to ask yourself why try to sell stock. They have not done any favors for photographers.

I also agree that if you sell your services, give them the files. In commercial work, that's absolutely the best way to do it. They get your creativity and vision. They have the staff to do the computer work and post-processing. Everyone wins.

Unfortunately, my selling my services to show chairmen and offering the images for free to exhibitors would require a MONUMENTAL cultural change which I do not see happening in my lifetime.

I guess the process of enforcing copyrights isn't the primary force at work in my thinking but I would really rather spend my time shooting shows and not printing, collating, stuffing envelopes, printing postage and mailing stuff. However, I would also prefer shooting shows to chasing thieves or going to small claims court.

It's not that I'm not willing to work hard. I just would prefer to work on things that I enjoy and that meet the market's needs/wants. I've put out a short survey to my best clients asking them what they would prefer in terms of my primary show product. When I get the results, I'll share it with the forum. I also asked some pricing questions which I'm sure will be very useful . As in "are you willing to pay more to get more"? If one person answers "yes" to that, I'll be amazed.

Thanks for your response. As always it's very helpful.

Jim