Aarrrrrrrr There, Jim Lad!

And how be we on this fine spankin' mornin' with the wind from the port quarter and the seagull poop on the taffrail? For it be International Talk Like A Pirate Day and ye can finally let loose yer spanker. My spanker is home doin' dishes. Aarrrr.

And how can we, as pirates, ensure ourselves against the piracy of others? For mark my words, there be monsters in the sea and on the net. Aarrrr. And they want to take out treasured images and sail off with them and turn them into gold. Time to go all Cap'n Kidd on the lubbers!

First off, put a watermark on yer images. This is a big disruptive overlay that you cobble up from a copyright symbol and your studio name and a dire warning not to remove it. Plaster it all over your images, and don't be shy about it - if the bride has a particularly fine bosom, mark it like the side of a goods wagon in a train yard. That'll stop her from sailing down to the local Hardly Normal and printing out the wedding pictures herself. Be sure to flatten the layer before you post it - preferably with a charge of grapeshot - and she'll never be able to retouch it out. Of course, the fact that the proof image looks like a fitted fast freight wagon bound for Murrwillumbar may discourage her from ordering it from you in the first place, but this is about security, not sales. Aarrrr.

Secondly, threaten 'em. Threaten 'em with the law, if you must, but if you be a real pirate, you'll want to do the job yourself, to see it well done. Cannons and pistols are difficult to come by these days  - damn those environmentalists - but you can still get cold steel and knotted rope's ends and boarding pikes quite freely. I can recommend several surplus stores, as well as mail-order firms in Pakistan. Be prepared to temper the blades and to do a bit 'o sharpening and avoid the decorated cutlasses - they are just for show. Mr. Wajid in Karachi does a particularly fine hook if you need one.

Finally, if you find that the scurvy dogs have sailed into yer harbour and cut out your best landscape picture and sailed off with it, you can adopt the philosophy of Red-Eye Goldstein - the greatest pirate of  three seas, a tidal basin, and Kamloops Lake. When his best photo of a grizzly bear eating a tourist was pinched from his website and submitted to the annual Canadian Environmentalist Photo Competition he just sat back until the award night. Then he went to the dinner, waited until the image was flashed on the screen, and then pulled out 15 other photos of the same incident - shot just before and just after the bear bit off the cyclist's head. When the attention this caused - and you can be assured that images of grizzlies eating tourists WILL attract attention - lead to all the room swivelling to look at the photographer who had entered the stolen image, Red-Eye simply walked over to him and gave him an Irish Kiss. It were beautiful, it were. Aarrrr.