This was not the case even 20 years ago. When the distribution of content was very managed and documented, TV broadcasts, registered radio stations and the like where the creators of programs, the content owners, the composers and even musicians could get paid when what they had done was exploited by others.

Then digital networks allowed the sending of content from one user to the other and eventually from anyone to lots of others. It all went a bit crazy.

I used to complain. I actually used to ask people how they felt morally for putting collections of MP3 encoded operas on CD and sending these collections to other people "for no commercial gain".

They never asked permission, and that was what I didn't like very much. The opportunity to spread sweets amongst hungry gratefully greedy schoolchildren outweighed any moral feelings of responsibility even to be grateful towards those from whom the work, the labour, the contributing skills had been simply stolen.

Any excuse became the norm. "I am not making money out of it". "It's a public service". "It is already public domain because it has been broadcast"… they were, and still are, endless and demoralising and legally on very shaky footing.

If you paid for something to be created, put it online, someone will steal it and call it their own even.

I made tuition videos for playing French Horn with Ifor James for example. I put some on YouTube and was heavily criticised for not having the settings set to allow the videos to be embedded on the websites of others. My saying "well, if you pay Ifor and his and his wife's board and lodging at the hotel for when he made these with me and maybe pay something towards my studio rent and maybe the camera?" I was however always the bad-guy. So bad that some even illegally downloaded the content and put it on their sites claiming it was theirs. I know a University teacher who uses the videos in the classroom stored on his own device! It is all fair game now. It has killed many a desire to create and distribute. All you'll get now is the insane an mediocre or indeed the stolen content.

YouTube started allowing content to be "monetised" with advertising. It was such a pittance. A dollar a year for 28,000 views and you never saw that either. Then, if you didn't get more than 4,000 views a month (now who would with premium french horn teaching content), you got nothing.

The ironic thing is that if one simply records and uploads a TV broadcast. Real content that doesn't belong to you but has a level of potential viewership, like say a BBC documentary on cats, you will have it there and tolerated by the bods at YouTube because, if the BBC doesn't complain, they and you will be earning good bucks through advertising that wasn't on the broadcast in the first place!

10-25 MILLION views on something that doesn't belong to you is possible. It is stolen content, will bring you and YouTube a fair amount through advertising that is basically fraudulently obtained.

It's clear that good and valuable, unique and quality is not what pays best and it is plainly wrong, immoral, if not criminal. What are the lawmakers doing about it? Nothing in effect. They politically do not want to spoil the fun and become the bad guys.

So, when people talk about the Great Train Robbery as being a massively criminal act, it pales into insignificance against the billions being made off stolen content online currently.

The search is on for good and worthwhile platforms for quality content. This must happen before the world forgets what good and quality is like.