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The letter arrived at Dave Formella's Long Beach travel agency the other day. It's fair to say it freaked him out. "It has come to our attention that you are using an image represented by Getty Images for online promotional purposes," the letter from the photo service began. It demanded $1,000 in damages, or $900 if Formella agreed to pony up the cash within two weeks. "We were really surprised, because we didn't think we were using any copyrighted pictures," Formella, 51, told me. He said he immediately pulled every photo from his company's site, which had been put together by a Web-design firm.

The benefits of erectile dysfunction drugs are well- documented. They may be double-edged as well. In a study published Tuesday in Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers analyzed pharmacy data for men over 40 who had received a prescription for an erectile dysfunction drug. We'll let them sum it up: "Men who use ED drugs have higher rates of STDs, particularly HIV infection, both in the year before and after use of these drugs." Here's the abstract from the STD study, the journal's information for patients and the pertinent-facts WebMD story: Men on ED Drugs Get More STDs.

The nonprofit J. Paul Getty Trust and Getty Images Inc., a Seattle-based stock photography company run by the patriarch's grandson, Mark Getty, have coexisted peacefully for the last two years, selling photographs to different constituencies.

Most July 4th-centric health warnings involve fireworks and the nightmarish consequences of setting off pyrotechnics -- death, loss of limbs, severe burns, etc. But the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration wants to warn people that that's not the only potential danger of the weekend. Hospital visits that involve underage drinking jump over the three-day Fourth of July weekend by a lot. On a typical day in July 2008, 502 emergency room visits in the U.S. were linked with underage drinking, according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network, which monitors drug-related hospital emergency department visits in the U.S. But on the weekend of the 4th, those numbers jumped to 938 visits per day, an increase of 87%. "Underage drinking is not a harmless right of passage," said SAMHSA administrator Pamela Hyde in a news release.

The benefits of erectile dysfunction drugs are well- documented. They may be double-edged as well. In a study published Tuesday in Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers analyzed pharmacy data for men over 40 who had received a prescription for an erectile dysfunction drug. We'll let them sum it up: "Men who use ED drugs have higher rates of STDs, particularly HIV infection, both in the year before and after use of these drugs." Here's the abstract from the STD study, the journal's information for patients and the pertinent-facts WebMD story: Men on ED Drugs Get More STDs.

Most July 4th-centric health warnings involve fireworks and the nightmarish consequences of setting off pyrotechnics -- death, loss of limbs, severe burns, etc. But the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration wants to warn people that that's not the only potential danger of the weekend. Hospital visits that involve underage drinking jump over the three-day Fourth of July weekend by a lot. On a typical day in July 2008, 502 emergency room visits in the U.S. were linked with underage drinking, according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network, which monitors drug-related hospital emergency department visits in the U.S. But on the weekend of the 4th, those numbers jumped to 938 visits per day, an increase of 87%. "Underage drinking is not a harmless right of passage," said SAMHSA administrator Pamela Hyde in a news release.

Re: David Lazarus' consumer column "Post a photo, pay the penalty," Sept. 13: As a photographer, my income comes from licensing my intellectual property. It is called property because it belongs to someone, like a car or a house. It is made by an artist, a photographer or other creator using imagination, talent and, in most cases, hard work. But it seems that with intellectual property, the morality of negotiating and agreeing between equals has changed. With the increasing ease of swiping work on the Internet, many people seem to think, "If I see it, if I want it, I can have it, without paying the person who legally owns it."

The J. Paul Getty Museum might seem a logical buyer for the rare and expensive ensemble of great Klimt paintings currently at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art -- but actually it's not. The museum's collection of European paintings predates the 20th century. However, that restriction does not prohibit the Getty Trust -- the museum's parent organization -- from acquiring art.

A transcontinental fare war has erupted at Los Angeles International Airport, where JetBlue Airways on Wednesday began offering a $105 one-way price to Boston and New York. With taxes and fees, a Southern California traveler will be able to fly nonstop to the East Coast for as little as $231 round trip this summer. It's the lowest such price the industry has seen in recent memory for high-demand summer travel.

People and Hello! magazines launched legal action Wednesday against two websites that published a picture of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt with their newborn daughter. When Pitt and Jolie sold rights to the images of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt through Getty Images, People magazine paid a reported $4 million for the right to release the pictures in North America, while Hello! obtained British rights.

Re: David Lazarus' consumer column "Post a photo, pay the penalty," Sept. 13: As a photographer, my income comes from licensing my intellectual property. It is called property because it belongs to someone, like a car or a house. It is made by an artist, a photographer or other creator using imagination, talent and, in most cases, hard work. But it seems that with intellectual property, the morality of negotiating and agreeing between equals has changed. With the increasing ease of swiping work on the Internet, many people seem to think, "If I see it, if I want it, I can have it, without paying the person who legally owns it."

The letter arrived at Dave Formella's Long Beach travel agency the other day. It's fair to say it freaked him out. "It has come to our attention that you are using an image represented by Getty Images for online promotional purposes," the letter from the photo service began. It demanded $1,000 in damages, or $900 if Formella agreed to pony up the cash within two weeks. "We were really surprised, because we didn't think we were using any copyrighted pictures," Formella, 51, told me. He said he immediately pulled every photo from his company's site, which had been put together by a Web-design firm.

The J. Paul Getty Museum might seem a logical buyer for the rare and expensive ensemble of great Klimt paintings currently at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art -- but actually it's not. The museum's collection of European paintings predates the 20th century. However, that restriction does not prohibit the Getty Trust -- the museum's parent organization -- from acquiring art.

The nonprofit J. Paul Getty Trust and Getty Images Inc., a Seattle-based stock photography company run by the patriarch's grandson, Mark Getty, have coexisted peacefully for the last two years, selling photographs to different constituencies.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt will give the world its first peek at their newborn daughter by releasing photos of Shiloh Nouvel, with the profit going to charity. The images, taken at a private photo shoot, will be distributed by Getty Images, the photo agency said Monday. "While we celebrate the joy of the birth of our daughter, we recognize that 2 million babies born every year in the developing world die on the first day of their lives," the couple said in a joint statement.

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) proposed congressional hearings to examine the contents of laptop computers apparently owned by a Colombian rebel commander known as Raul Reyes. The computers were recovered by Colombian commandos in Ecuador after Reyes, the No. 2 commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was killed in a March 1 bombing raid. The Colombian government has leaked files that it said indicate Venezuela made offers of financial, political and arms help to the FARC, which the U.S. views as a terrorist group.