Posted on TheHill.com, the Congress Blog, comic book creator Colleen Doran (A Distant Soil, Welcome to Amerikay)lays out her stance on piracy from the point of view of 20 year comic book professional. She tackles the ideas that pirated comics are "free advertising" and that pirates aren't just taking little bites from the big corporation, but from working artists whose livelihoods depend on every little bit of income.
This is in response to an upcoming bill before congress that would restrict advertising on pirate sites, who can make a huge amount of money from mainstream companies like Google.
For more than 20 years, I’ve written and drawn comics for a variety of major publishers: Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Image and Disney. Like many artists, I’ve seen my sales figures chipped away as the print market shrinks due, in no small part, to rampant online piracy.
I tried to count the number of pirate sites that had my work available for free download, but when I hit 145, I was too depressed to go on. Pirates and impecunious fans inform me that pirating my work is great publicity, for piracy isn’t nearly as dangerous to an artist as obscurity.
I made my comic series, A Distant Soil, available as a free webcomic less than two years ago. Despite assurances that the many sites pirating my work were doing me a favor with their “free advertising” I never saw a single incoming link from them, saw no increase in traffic, and made virtually no money.
Frequent original content (often pirated the day I post it,) increased my traffic, not pirate “advertising”. Pirates draw traffic from my site, and cost me millions of hits annually, which cuts my advertising revenue.
Readers assume they are only nickel and diming rich corporations with their bit torrent naughtiness, but I am a middle class artist and farmer for whom a few thousand dollars a year in lost income means I can’t afford health insurance.
Doran goes on.
Distribution is the only concern. Readers care about the gadget that gives them the goods, and have no connection to the goods at all, or who made them. But without desirable content, there’s nothing to distribute.
Everyone gets paid – manufacturers of computers, iPads, electricity, bandwidth – everyone except the creators of content.
It costs big bucks to finance these pirate sites. Major advertisers and open source ad providers like Google pay them.
Congress is moving on a bill that promises to cut funding for pirates, and the usual suspects who have become accustomed to getting whatever they want online without paying for it are crying foul.
I'm thinking about this in terms of the constriction we've seen in publishing lately, with Marvel cutting titles of low selling books, such as Thor: The Mighty Avenger, and everything at Wildstorm, and wondering how much impact the availability of free scans of this comic book work contributed to the demise of the titles. Writer Paul Cornell has been writing a lot about piracy in his Twitter feed, saying "Colleen Doran is my hero." His are just the kinds of books most affected by piracy, where Captain Britain and MI13 was just on the edge of selling enough copies to continue. Again, you have to wonder if the fact that people could get it for nothing took away just enough sales to kill the title.
In another tweet, artist Gary Erskine asks, "If you download comics illegally and don't think it's wrong then pop by a convention next time and tell us face to face why it's not?" and "If you can't afford it, save. If you can't wait for it, be patient. If you think it's unfair… grow up. You're not five years old."
I predict that over the coming months, and the next year or so, we're going to be hearing the concerns of a lot more creatives in comics as paying jobs get more scarce, as sales goes down, and the numbers of books downloaded illegally go up.
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Legal and technical solutions to piracy are doomed to failure. Only a social solution will be successful.
They really can’t expect to make any progress with how sad the big 2’s digital distribution is. Look at music, sure people pirate it a ton now but it was RAMPANT until iTunes and eMusic offered viable, legit, digital options.
Doran is very smart and well spoken on the issue and I applaud her.
The one thing I’d question is statements on what publishers "can’t" do with digital distribution because I think that’s hard to know when they’re only just starting to try.
Oh boy. Every time this gets brought up, a can of worms the size of the planet spills out in the comments. Here we go.
I guess I just don’t have the same frame of mind as people who pirate stuff. I mean, I have almost no time to read the things that I can afford. If I downloaded illegal stuff, I’d never read it. So what’s the point? It’s like music. When Napster first hit, I downloaded all kinds of stuff, but at the end of the day, I didn’t listen to half of it. It just doesn’t make sense. I’ve had to train my brain to accept that no matter how much goodness there is, I just can’t read all of it. So I focus on the things that interest me and the things I have and I enjoy them.
Torrents only hurt the creators, which are the people we should be supporting in the first place. Sure, some of them work for big corporations, but those corporations give the creators freedom to create great stories for great characters. It just doesn’t make sense to hurt the corporation too. The more you hurt it, the less freedom it has to do the comics you want.
Good on Doran to take a stand on the issue.
Doran is awesome. BRAVO! As a person who creates content for a living she’s absolutely right and i’d love to see the tide turn on this.
When you pirate you are casting a vote against that artist. You are saying the work is not worth paying for and should not continue to be produced. You are helping that work you are enjoying to go away and you are stealing from people you claim to support.
What about things that you can’t get? Like Marvelman or other out of print or un-traded works? I mean would would argue its not hurting the artist if its not up for sale to begin with?
Before I write absolutely anything, let it be know that I personally believe that comics piracy is a tenable position in any way, shape, or form. I don’t support comics piracy, nor do I think its a good idea. I buy all my books from my LCS…always.
Having said that, I’m bothered by the two dimentionality and simplicity of a lot of the anti-comics piracy rhetoric that has been flying around lately.
First, I think that laying the blame for declining sales and market size at the feet of comics piracy is an enormous mistake. It completely absolves the companies (and the decisions they make) of any responsibility in the matter – which I find quite bothersome. If we want to consider why the vast majority of creators (except for a small minority) pretty much get paid piss all for their enormously hard and creative work, we need also to consider the standard work for hire structure practiced by most comic publishers.
The other thing that bothers me is the subtext that comics are cancelled because they are pirated. Does this mean that books were never cancelled before the web? (the primary mechanism that has enabled media piracy of all kinds).
I think its also enormously important that everyone realizes that to the best of my knowledge (and I’ve looked into this back when I taught a class on the history of comic books) there hasn’t been any research at all as to the impact that comics piracy has on the industry. Until we get that research – research that *must* be carried out within an academic environment, and not by the companies themselves (we’ve been down that road too often with the MPAA and RIAA manipulating the results of studies), everything that is said is conjecture and opinion. I’m not saying that creator’s shouldn’t voice their opinions and discuss their personal experiences. Quite the contrary. I think it is absolutely vital for the necessary ongoing dialog. What I’m saying is that definitive statements about the impact of comics piracy on the industry simply shouldn’t be made until their is quality research data to back it up.
Just as there are groups like "Anonymous" who want to take down Scientology, I think there needs to be internet vigilantes who target the pirate torrent sites. Hey Bruce Wayne, where’s the internet branch of Batman, Inc?
I’m sure I’ll get flamed and/or banned for this but here goes–Doran is completely wrong on this issue as are most other creators. I’ll freely admit that I’ve pirated a ton of comics in addition to buying a ton at my local shop. However, the amount I buy physically has dropped dramatically because quite frankly I don’t want physical media anymore. It’s big, expensive, cumbersome to read and takes up a ton of space.
I’ve tried some of the various online distribution models like Comixology, graphic.ly and I’ve not been satisfied with any of them. Either the interface stinks or the selection is anemic. That’s the sad reality. The biggest mistake Doran and all creators make is assuming that pirates simply don’t want to pay for media. For me that’s untrue, I WANT to pay for the things I like but I’m not going to settle for an inferior product when there is a better one for free. How do you compete with free? Simple: service. I’ve pirated a ton of video games but now almost none since I discovered Steam. Great UI, ease of use, unlimited downloads, etc. etc. Same with iTunes. Comics just need an equivalent distribution method but creators, publishers, whomever have not given it to us. That’s on them.
I also think it’s unfair of Doran to simply equate her lack of sales with piracy. I looked at her webcomic site and honestly it’s not how I want to consume media. I don’t want to view a comic page by page wrapped in a cumbersome site. Sorry. Follow @steve_lieber ‘s advice and release a .cbr and maybe I’ll check out her stuff. There are tons of creators making a great living giving some/most/all of their stuff away for free. See Cory Doctorow, Radiohead, Jonathan Coulton,Trent_Reznor, Penny-arcade, on and on. The trick is to engage your audience and provide them a product that they want in a way they want to consume it.
/soapbox
That said, sales are declining because quite frankly no one wants physical media anymore. It’s expensive, cumbersome
@captainprimate–from all of my years following Politics whenever i hear the term "until we get the research" it just serves as an excuse to stall and do nothing….the status quo’s best weapon.
I think its part of the problem, but not the only factor in killing books. Sure every pirated issue isn’t a lost sale. Plenty of people download things they would never consider buying, but i’m sure there is crossover. If Thor the Mighty Avenger had massive torrent numbers, and it fell short in sales, then you could make some inferences as to cause and effect.
For me, i’m on a strict budget for comics. I know how and where to find just about any torrent i want, but i don’t DL comics illegally. As a creative i’ve been nickel and dime-ed (basically being told your work and time isn’t valuable) to go and steal from another creative person. If i can’t buy it, i don’t read it…and my stack is overflowing so i’m good. As an aspiring creator, writing and illustrating my first book I really understand how difficult it is and how much personal investment it takes to make one comic.
@mikespit1200—i hear radiohead and NIN used as examples to support free content all the time and its a falacy. They also had millions of fans built in from being part of the major record label machine for over a decade with millions of dollars in support, advertising and a huge back catalog. Its easy to go out on your own and give something away and still thrive when you have that much built in support. The vast majority of creatives do not have anything remotely close to that and is a completely unfair comparison.
Piracy kills creativity. There’s no arguing that. If it cuts down the companies, it cuts down the artists that provde for them. As a result, we consumers get less good products.
@wallythegreenmonster Fair enough. But the fact remains they are making a living with the strategy that Doran cites as untenable. Can you refute the success of Jonathan Coulton and Cory Doctorow then? Or @Steve_Lieber of Underground fame? Can you explain this: http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2010/10/4chan-piracy-causes-spike-in-sales-for-lieber-and-parkers-underground/
Or maybe this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humble_Indie_Bundle
While her argument is thoughtful, I think she is vastly overestimating the amount of revenue she is losing just by virtue piracy taking place. If her webcomic never was and could never be read anyplace other than her own website, that doesn’t mean she’d be receiving vast amounts of more traffic than she does now as it exists.
Making money from your product, especially if your a creative artist, take vastly more work and ingenuity than it does to make it in the first place. That was a reality before piracy was so easy, and it still is.
Particularly in this woman’s case, she is bemoaning that her product that she releases for free consumption isn’t being consumed in a way that earns her money?! Its on HER to induce and coerce consumers into trafficking her site if thats how she wants to earn money. It is hard enough to earn money when your product isnt free to consumer, and it becomes exponentially harder when your product IS free. Piracy or no piracy.
Ever since piracy became so easy I think too many artist have lapsed into passing the buck and blaming the consumers for the shortcomings of the business side of their creative endeavors. its as if they think they deserve earnings just by virtue of creating something and put it out there for consumption.
Rationale:”Because Marvel & DC offer inferior digital comics it’s okay to illegally get their product.” I call bullshit. People will always rationalize their unethical behavior. Yeah, you get your product for free, but it hurts the fans–eventually. How? Publishers cancel low-selling titles, leads to creators not creating, leads to less comics published, leads to generic and less diverse good comics published. “But! it’s okay because they keep raising prices.” Well, they wouldn’t have to if more people bought the damn things. Christ!
@mikespit1200–i’m not saying you can’t do well with newer internet sharing rnet models. I have a friend with a very successful webcomic turned into a massive kickstarter project and he is making some money. Its possible. I just hate hearing the NIN and Radiohead examples. Its a weak example as its not duplicatable by 99.99999% of content creators.
Doran raises excellent questions about pirate sites and advertising…if you’re making money off of pirated stuff that changes things doesn’t it? they might be stealing her traffic which is a legit concern.
Ms. Doran’s wrote some totally obscure book that almost no one has ever heard of and posted it online. Now, she blames her lack of money on the availability of comics for free online? Whatever.
@wallythegreenmonster That’s a fair point about NIN and Radiohead which I’ll concede. But we do agree on the larger point that artists can make money if they provide content in a form people want. I think all her arguments are misguided though. If she’s losing traffic to pirate sites it’s because people are going elsewhere for content she should provide herself. Honestly, it would take her literally ten minutes to bind up her stuff in .cbr and put it behind a donation wall. Not hard. Or build in app and charge .99 which will earn exponentially more than the pennies she gets from page hits.
Legislating against piracy does not work, we have decades of evidence to back that up.
@camden – That’s so dismissive it’s ridiculous. Honestly, I was waiting for someone to make that ignorant argument. Doran’s been around for decades. She was one of the artists on Sandman as well. Just because you haven’t heard of someone doesn’t mean their opinions are worthless. Quit being ignorant.
@Camden – she wrote a book that YOU have never heard of. Don’t equate that with general awareness of her. She has a wikipedia article, indicating a certain career importance, at least. While such a post is indeed self-protective, it was clearly also written to provoke a legitimate discussion.
Here’s why I think pirating comics is acceptable, but not ideal.
First, I’m a graduate student. I don’t have tons of cash to throw around, making it hard for me to try out every new book and creative team. With piracy I can check out the first few issues to test the waters, then if I like it I buy the trades. Before I went to trades only I wasn’t able to test new books anyway because of lack of cash, this way I’m at least exposed to them and may pick up the trades later. No lost sales and the potential to actually increase sales in trades.
Second, because I like to trade wait (because it’s cheaper than singles) frequently everything is spoiled six months to a year before I get to read it. I know the previews tell you that Batman’s coming back three months before the single comes out, but by the time the trade comes out I already know exactly how he comes back and what he’s doing next because every comics website posts annotated guides. As some other posters said legal digital distribution is helping with this but between DRM and lack of selection it’s not to a point that I’m willing to pay. I want to own my digital file, not own the rights to pull it down off a server that may disappear or go down. I’m much more likely to buy something that I’ve already read and enjoyed than something that’s been totally spoiled for me.
Third, I actually got into comics because of piracy. Around middle school I figured out how to download tons of comics on torrent sites. Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, Maus, Hellboy, all those crazy bad 90’s comics, all the old Fourth World stuff from Kirby. At the time I really couldn’t afford them or drive to my LCS. Now (excluding a lot of those crazy bad 90’s comics) I own them all in paperback, hardcover, or both. Pirating got me into comics, and it keeps me in comics.
@wallythegreenmonster – I’m not talking about research w/in a political context (or how its used within a policial context). My point is that as soon as you start making definitive statements about the way the world is ("X happens because of Y") then you are stepping into my house – the house of science…hypothesis, theory, data, and research (I can’t believe I just said "you are stepping into my house"). Anyhoo. You absolutely cannot make broad statements about the way the world is (how things work, etc.) without the data support said statements.
Any with that, I’m walking over to my LCS to buy my books.
does anyone here like working for free???
It bears mentioning that while I find the two dimentionality and simplicity of the anti-piracy rhetoric troubling, I find the rationale that the pirates themselves use to justify their behavior completely transparent B.S.
Let me first say that I have not pirated media in nearly ten years, not since Napster became a pay site back in the day, nor do I want to. BUT, the Bill that is infront of Congress, as I understand it, is about a lot more than advertising on pirate sites. I would allow the US Government to tell Internet Providers which sites they can and cant allow access to…um, China anyone. It may be designed to curb piracy, but it will be used to kill 1st amendment rights. 1984 here we come.
I agree that something needs to be done, but I dont think we know how to do it.
(Hope this wasnt to political for the site)
I want to point out one thing. No one, myself included, said that piracy is THE cause for canceled series, and declinging sales. But there’s clearly some reason to think that it could be ONE OF the causes.
"I find the rationale that the pirates themselves use to justify their behavior completely transparent B.S."
@CaptainPrimate Why is that? Because in Marloweolram’s case he’s been able to keep tabs and discover books he likes and thus generate more revenue for publishers and creators when he buys the physical books? Or in my case how I read Surrogates in cbr and bought a copy from Venditti himselfat NYCC a few years ago? I don’t think anyone’s trying to justify anything. People like free stuff and, like it or not, as a creator in this day and age you have to compete with free stuff. As I mentioned earlier there are a ton of examples of the way people compete with piracy (steam, itunes) and it works. Opening up a dialogue (hopefully) compels other creators to test the waters with smart digital distribution.
I am not dismissive of her. I am dismissive of her argument that the reason she does not make more money is because her book "A Distant Soil" is available for free online. There are tons of reasons people don’t make more money. She chooses to say that it’s piracy. There were people in the 1960’s, 1970’s, 1980’s even the 1990’s who thought their work should bring them more money. What was their excuse? Ms. Doran is making an excuse for why she is not making more money. People have been making excuses for why they don’t make more money since money was invented. She focuses on what I feel is the least likely reason she does not make more money.
@camden–a complete dismissal of her arguments is unfair. Can you honestly say with a straight face that taking a product without paying for it, has no effect whatsoever on the profitability of said product?
@mikespit2000 – this is absolutely an attempt to justify. "I do X because of X" You are justifying your behavior. I pirate comics because I don’t have money, I pirate comics because I don’t have an LCS…whatever. You are providing an reason for behavior…which is an attempt at justification.
I think the industry needs to make a combined effort to get us to an iTunes for comics system where you own the digital file, have a diverse back catalogue, better pricing structures to buy runs of titles and a good interface that will allow you to read your content on all formats.
The current providers are poor. Comixology is on the right track but still have a long way to go. How many of these companies will last long-term? I don’t want to lose my comics because graphic.ly or comixology goes out of business. Until digital is done correctly others will download illegally. It’s wrong but many do it because the market is simply not meeting their demand. Unfortunately creators will suffer unjustly until that day arrives.
I agree with everything Colleen says, but — I also agree with @Jarrett. In fact, the only two comics "my friend" has ever taken the initiative to find on the web were the long out-of-print "Miracleman" and "Maximortal." I don’t defend his decision to enter into any kind of piracy, but (at the time) there was no other option in either of those cases.
@davidtobin100—iTunes is a success with millions of users and s-tons of revenue coming in right? People still torrent music in huge numbers. Soooooo there goes that argument kinda sorta….
people like to use "if only this format existed (knowing its not coming soon) then i could stop stealing…oh wait its here…so um yeah i still like taking for free so nevermind" argument because its easy.
I think the amazing thing is that nobody is focussing on the fact that downloading a copyrighted work is illegal. You can argue until you are blue in the face whether or not stealing books hurts the creator, but the fact you can’t dispute is that it is against the law. We live in an amazing time where people are perfectly content to break the law as long as they think they can justify it.
@mikespitt2000 – so, are you telling me that you’ve only ever pirated Surrogates? And the fact that you bought the book from the creator justifies the pirating? Honestly, you’ve never pirated any other book? Really? If you did, did you also buy the trade/issue from the creator? If not, your original argument doesn’t really stand up that well.
The first comics I read were pirated versions of Sin City and Hellboy, which rapidly led to me being a full paying comics reader, and a coveted "new reader" Not that it always happens that way, but to some it is an easy way to get in.
I have friends who download comics to preview if it’s worth the money, because they finally got fed up with years of purchasing certain titles, only to feel like they were ripped-off (events, DON’T MISS THIS ISSUE!, hype like that). I can see that being the reason with most pirates; they’re tired of paying high prices for stories and creative teams that live-up to the hype. With Marvel and DC releasing hundreds of titles a month, what percentage of those books in reality are going to be worth the purchase?
So while I don’t agree with it, I can understand that mindset of being fed-up.
Many studies have shown that piracy gives a positive impact on music sales. I honestly think print is affected the same way. Check out any article by Cory Doctorow for the opposing opinion. He also practices what he preaches to no ill effect.
I’m sure piracy is a problem. I’m sure it cuts down on sales. But it’s not like the industry is powerless to do anything about it.
I hear the comic book industry saying things like their business is grounded in print media, or even that their customers want the print. I know that both are true to some extent, but business models change, and not all customers do want print.
Arguments that say that piracy is some form of advertising, that it somehow helps the industry by getting stuff out to more people, are just wrong (unless the Industry is right when it says that people primarily want print. In that case piracy shouldn’t be hurting anyone, but just enticing them to buy the print copy, but this is not the case). People pirating comics are doing it for purely selfish reasons. It helps no one but themselves. But at least some of those people would be happy to spend money on the same thing that they’re getting for free if it was an option. Are there enough people like that to keep the industry going? I don’t know. But it hasn’t really been tried. Complaints that piracy is killing the industry seem a little disingenuous when the pirated product is so different from the purchased product. There’s competition there. I have no doubt that people are losing money. But they haven’t really tried what seems like the obvious solution to me: try to sell them the stuff you don’t want them taking for free. Until the industry takes that step, squashing piracy is going to be a serious uphill battle. They’re trying to convince people to pay for products in the format that they don’t want, rather than get it for free in the format that they do want. Unless most of the people pirating comics would actually prefer they physical books if they could get them, but more and more people are consuming most of their media digitally, so I don’t think that’s the case. And if there’s any parallels between the comic industry and the music industry, then iTunes as the number one music retailer implies that people will pay for the product they want if someone will sell it to them.
There’s no moral high ground for piracy. I’m not saying that there is. But I feel like the comic industry isn’t just fighting against people who don’t want to pay for stuff. They’re fighting against potential customers by not offering them viable alternatives. Pirated copies are not just free copies. To a lot of people they are better copies. Before the industry can blame all their problems on piracy, they need to offer a comparable product.
@KingYoda Wow, that argument is one of the most naiive I’ve heard in a long time. Laws aren’t just some divine commands that we all hold to be true. No, laws are a function of society that in design are meant to protect and promote the social good.
In accordance with your "it’s illegal" argument, did you know at one time it was LEGAL to own slaves? You know that at one point it was ILLEGAL for chinese to immigrate to the US? Do you know that in one state it’s LEGAL to take another’s life if they’re trespassing on your property and in another state it’s ILLEGAL?
Laws are created, rejected, ammended all the time. Laws are from the people, from our society – not forced upon the people. The right argument here is what it has been above: whether or not piracy is moral and a substantial harm to the industry.
@Rob3E
Excellent point about the digital copy being better. I love my Absolute Hardcover Omnibus Platinum Editions because they’re pretty on the shelf and gorgeous to read. On a trip, I want a digital file. For me, the ideal would be an excellent, itunes style digital distribution system that sells you the file, but if you buy the printed trade you get a download code for the legal digital file. Just like how I back up all my personal photos, and purchased CDs, DVDs digitally, I’d like to keep digital files of my comics without having to a) scan them myself or b) go for the more nefarious methods.
@mikespit2000 – "this is absolutely an attempt to justify. "I do X because of X" You are justifying your behavior. I pirate comics because I don’t have money, I pirate comics because I don’t have an LCS…whatever. You are providing an reason for behavior…which is an attempt at justification"
No, I’m simply being honest about what I do and why I do it. You can condemn me for it if you want, but Believe me, I’m not looking for anyone’s approval. I’m just being honest about the type of product I’m willing to pay for. The current form of digital comics is not it. I’m not interested in arguing ethics or morality, because clearly the market doesn’t care about ethics or morality with regard to copying. The only thing I’m interested is providing open and honest feedback of the type of product I’m willing to pay for. If the creators aren’t willing to provide then that’s their loss because they are leaving money on the table. I’ll go elsewhere for said product.
"I think the amazing thing is that nobody is focussing on the fact that downloading a copyrighted work is illegal. You can argue until you are blue in the face whether or not stealing books hurts the creator, but the fact you can’t dispute is that it is against the law. We live in an amazing time where people are perfectly content to break the law as long as they think they can justify it."
And yet millions of people do it every day and no one can produce evidence of any demonstrable harm. In Doran’s case she’s simply been unable to monetize her work enough for her liking. That’s lamentable but clearly she has better options than lobbying congress for a terriblly repressive bill. This is why laws can and should be changed.
@mikespitt2000 – so, are you telling me that you’ve only ever pirated Surrogates? And the fact that you bought the book from the creator justifies the pirating? Honestly, you’ve never pirated any other book? Really? If you did, did you also buy the trade/issue from the creator? If not, your original argument doesn’t really stand up that well.
Certainly not. But that sounds to me like an "every download is a lost sale" argument to me which is thoroughly bunk for a whole host of reasons (if you want to get into it we can). If I hadn’t read Surrogates online I never would have bought the book. The vast majority of stuff I find online is junk which I never would have paid good money for in the first place. But on the occasion I find something great I’m more than willing to compensate the creator. As a few examples, Locke and Key bc the HCs are beautiful, Sin City, I’d honestly have to look through my collection to give you a better idea. That’s still a net positive for the industry in my opinion, because otherwise I would have given up comics a long time ago.
The fact of the matter is piracy will never go away, the only question is how do you harness the distribution method so that creators can keep making money. It can and is being done by people of all stripes.
@Jarrett: The only time I’ve downloaded like that wwas the last issue of Final Crisis. I wanted to buy it at my LCS but they didn’t have it. So I downloaded it to read it and bought it a few weeks later. I wasn’t a fan of FC but bought it after reading anyway. I also used to download scanlation manga years ago becasue many of the stories I wanted to read wasn’t in English but today there is more English translated managa.
@azrael1213–you’re comparing the ethics and morality of stealing a stupid comic book to slavery? really? REALLY? That is so….i can’t even articulate how asinine and ignorant that is.
From the beginning of time taking something that you did not own without permission or paying for has been called stealing. Just about every organized culture and society has considered it wrong, So now its suddenly ok because its easier? yeah whatever dude.
Piracy effects us as consumers too. I don’t pirate stuff because I am an artist in a different field and every day have to go through asshole hoarders who always want to get something for free.
As a consumer, since I want to pay the artist for what they do AND own these wonderful items, I buy it. Recently I have had to cut back on my comics to save money and it’s hard for me. Yesterday at the shop I wanted to drop tons of money like I always do, but I didn’t. I also didn’t go home to steal money from people who are having a hard time making money. I have to now wait for teh trades which you can get cheaper from amazon or borrow it from the Library.
I have heard assholes say that borrowing from teh Library is the same as stealing it. It’s not because if the publisher doesn’t want to allow it in a Library, it will not be.
Anyways, fuck you thieves for stealing comics, taking money away from artists who are already poor, making it harder for consumers like me to buy comics (more expensive) and having great titles canceled because its being stealing. Go to hell.
It’s like going to a restaurant, eating the food, skipping on paying and not tipping. That idea screws everyone involved … including the thief because it creates a society where you have to spend more time policing than creating.
The fact that she can’t get health insurance breaks my heart. Although I don’t pirate (simply because I will always prefer print to a screen) but it pisses me off how some titles, particularly things like the Blackest Night titles have taken over a year to come out in paperback, just because they want that extra £3-4. I can wait, but most cant.
Hang on a second…I just thought of something. If piracy can contribute to canceling comics, maybe we should steal comics we don’t like?
@marlowewolram I love that idea. I’ve been wondering about the legal issues of owning physical and digital issues, too. It seems like if I wanted to digitize comics I bought, there wouldn’t be a legal issue, but you never can tell. But if it’s legal for me to scan my own comic, is it any worse to download a copy someone else has scanned? I just don’t know. But I do know there are some runs of comics in trunks in the closet that I would absolutely reread on my iPad, but that I would never get reread if I was legally obligated to carry the individual issues around with me until I got through the run. Those comics, like my CDs, were banished to the closet because they were taking over the house. I have to be really entertainment-starved before I dig those out again just because of the inconvenience. It’s the extreme convenience that makes digital so appealing. Although that also might be what makes it a threat to the industry. I would certainly never feel the desire to buy my comics twice if I had them digitally like I’ve been known to do in the past with individual issues and trades. The exception being the really well done, nicely bound editions that just can’t be resisted. But that’s the problem: digital promises so much more in terms of portability, easy storage, accessibility, but the current reality is that I can usually find one or two issues of run that I want, they’re vendor-locked (meaning I only "own" them as long the vendor is in business and allows me access), and they’re only portable if the vendor decides to support the device I want to port them to. I am in no way trying to justify piracy or say that it’s a good thing, just that I understand why it might happen completely separate from a "I don’t want to pay for stuff" mentality. It took the music industry several years to agree to offer to sell people the DRM-free, downloadable, portable files that they wanted. It cost them dearly on sales in the mean time, and the lack of digital offerings only bolstered piracy while the music industry slowly changed their business model. I would love to see the comic industry make this transition more gracefully, but railing against piracy first and addressing their own business processes later seems like the road we’ve already been down.
It amazes me that people using pirating as a way to check out books they’re interested in. We live in an age where libraries have access to all kinds of comics and trades. Borders, Barnes & Noble, and other major book retailers have lounges that encourage you to read and most of those stores have more trades, OGNs, and manga than comic book stores. Why aren’t people using these outlets to check things out? Some shops have a trade swap program. I know on the forums there used to be a trade swap thread. There are so many other options to check things out than to just steal them off the Internet.
Commerce (in regards to media) is all about risk. Sometimes you spend money on awesomeness and sometimes you spend money on utter shit. It’s a part of the process. To think that we have some right to steal things to make sure we like them before we buy them is beyond the realm of common sense. Think of it this way: if you go into a grocery store and steal a package of snack cakes because you wanted to make sure you liked them before you paid for them, you’d be in handcuffs. It’s the same thing. Try before you buy only applies to "As Seen on TV" products.
@jarrett—-yeah but everybody loves/hates different things so in the end it would most probably effect stuff you like.
@azrael1213 So let me get this straight. You want to compare the fact that stealing comic books are illegal with the fact that slavery was once legal? I don’t grant the scale, but okay I’ll take the bait. If you want to protest current copyright laws through civil disobedience, then I support you. You do seem to be forgetting a step though. True civil disobedience requires that you make your illegal activities known to the authorities. If you truly believe that copyright law is wrong, then you should fight it in a court of law. if you don’t believe that strongly, then you should learn to follow the rules.
I fully support copyright reform. I think our current laws could use a lot of work, but that work should be done through congress or the courts. Breaking the law because you disagree with it really requires strong moral convictions. To use your example, the people who freed slaves even though it was against the law did so because they were willing to risk there lives to correct a grave human injustice.
Are you willing to sacrifice your life for your right to download content for free?
how creators are compensated/paid in the industry is a problem too, kinda like the music industry only bands can tour and make money directly from shows so the equivication of the music industry and comic books or movies is not fair.
This is definitately a tough subject to contemplate, but if you don’t pay for something that is being sold in some format, whether it is a format you like or not, once you buy it you can change it into any format you want, it hurts the creation of the product. it might not be a one for one comparison with lost sales, but there is a correlation there. and the time it takes for creating comics is huge, so for those think creators need to spend more time distributing the product via marketing and advertising and other efforts, I ask, where’s my 36 hour day?!
Right or wrong, it doesn’t matter. It’s adapt or die time.
I don’t believe pirating has a huge effect on the bottom line, it’s not like there was a huge dip in sales when torrenting became popular. You have to take your content and reapply it and adapt it to the new media though to get new customers.
People are making money off of News, Music, Movies and TV on the internet. The people who took the biggest damages were the people who never adapted. Get your content on as many internet devices as possible, put it behind a subscription or at a price point that people will buy it on a whim and make sure that sorting the content is easy.
Add incentives, buy a new comic and get one comic from the 90s for free or 2 from the eighties or 3 from the 70s.
Marvel put out a subscription, 15 bucks a month get 10 comics a month, 20 bucks gets you 15. Price so that people will go, well I only read 10 books but I’d give up 5 more bucks for another 5 books. With a subscription that goes a year long unlock there choice of 4 or 5 more books, and do that every year. Put scratch codes in Marvel movies, games, comics and other products to unlock books in your online store, cross promote, go see Thor and get the mini-series for free. That way you get people using it and then maybe keep a percentage of people who will buy stuff regularly. Then sell an ad at the beginning of the online books for other things like Netflix, Disneyland or whatever.
Go balls out, incentives, cross promote and build synergy between all levels of the corporation, stop whining about piraters and man up. There is money out there to be taken, take it.
I agree wholeheartedly w/ Crucio.
@mikespit12000 "The vast majority of stuff I find online is junk which I never would have paid good money for in the first place."<– this is where I feel the blind spot in this argument occurs. See, Joe Schmoe worked just as hard on putting out his junk as Venditti did, and you read them *both*, but you only decided that The Surrogates was worth buying. Now if the artist is giving something for free and asking for donations, hey, that’s cool. But you’re using technology to subvert the system. The artist is entering into a system in which he or she creates and packages something, markets it, and sells it, hoping that if it’s good enough, you’ll purchase the next item they sell. But now people can decide to actually "ingest" the product first, getting to full experience of it, and then decide whether or not they should donate after the fact and receive a "collectible" in return.
So let’s not even say that one system is worse than the other. Let’s just say they’re two different systems. But the seller is entering into one, and you’re using technology to say, "nope, we’re not going to do it that way. I’m doing it this way, whether you like it or not."
@dacampo That’s the direction the world is moving in whether the creators like it or not. As Crucio so succinctly put it, "adapt or die". Make a better product and/or distribute it for free or donation. I don’t really care. It’s not my job to figure out their business models for digital distribution.
Pirating music is not the same thing as pirating comics. Most artists do not get a huge chunk of money from album sales but rather playing shows and touring. Therefore it isn’t the most terrible thing if people listen to their music for free and go see said artist next time they’re in town.
Comics is different because these artists, writers, inkers, colorists, editors, etc livelihood depends on the sales. When Thor The Might Avenger got canceled Tumblr went crazy about it. I personally went on to say that if anyone here is complaining about a book being canceled that they illegally downloaded than they can go to Hell. It’s just absurd. Stealing comics is wrong, end of story. The only time I say it’s okay is if you want to read something that is very rare and no longer in print. I will admit that I downloaded Miracleman.
– They’re not doing what I want, so I take what I want.
– I can’t afford it, so I take what I want.
– Until someone else changes things to the way I want, I’m going to do what I want.
– Right or wrong, I don’t care.
Sounds like something a bully would say.
how about lending a comic to a friend, is that ok? how is it different to what is technically illegal (in the UK anyway), recording a program from the TV and keeping it more than about 1 month? i think it’s more of a grey area perhaps
"Sounds like something a bully would say."
@josh Is that directed at me? We can have civil debate and not toss around pejoratives like bully. I think I’ve put forth my arguments forth pretty clearly and in good faith, whether you agree or not.
@Asteraceae: When you lend your friend a comic that copy you are lending has been paid for. When you pirate a comic you are creating duplicate copies that are not paid for.
@josh I don’t think anyone here who’s advocating for comics companies to adapt their model is saying "I do this because they don’t give me what I want". It’s just the way the world is now. It happened with music, its happening with TV. The general public votes via piracy. The masses will pick the easiest way to get comics and its in the industry’s best interest to make the legit way the easiest way to get what you want.
If the big 4 did what Crucio suggested, you’d see a MASSIVE decrease in piracy. Guaranteed.
@astera When you lend a comic to a friend, there’s still just 1 copy of a comic. You haven’t photocopied it made a new version and given it to him. Which would be wrong.
I’ve loved and supported Colleen’s work since A Distant Soil. However I have to point out leap in logic she makes. She counts 145 torrent sites (most are worthless mirrors), but doesn’t reveal the number of copies actually downloaded. She assumes A) everyone who downloads her work actually reads it (could sit on a reader’s hard drive forever unread) and B) everyone who pirated it would have bought it if the torrent didn’t exist. Piracy really might have nothing to do with her income. Correlation doesn’t always equal causation.
On the other hand Cory Doctorow is, and always has been, full of crap.
I hate this argument, and I hate the people that try, albeit really hard, to justify stealing someone else’s work product. I have no doubts that none of you would appreciate someone stealing your work. It’s ok for you to make a living, but it’s not okay for an artist to do the same.
The whole "try before you buy" argument is a fallacy. You know what, I’d like a Porsche, but Porsche isn’t going to allow me to take the car of the dealership, give it a whirl for a month, and then see if at that point I’d like to pay for it. Yes. I understand that you want to try things out before you buy, or you don’t have the money to pay for the comic, but you know what, no one is entitled to read everything they want or try everything they want. If you don’t have the money for it, then too bad. You’re not entitled to anything. These creators work hard to put out these products, and they should be rewarded as such.
There is absolutely no justification for stealing something. I know everyone tries to justify, but it doesn’t make it right.
@mikespit – That’s truly unfortunate. A very mercenary attitude toward exploiting a system made faulty by a new technology.
Sadly, You won’t get better art. You will get less art. It will become an unaffordable position for many artists. You’ve made your choice as to what’s important by flaunting a technology. Let’s face it, that’s all this is. You won’t attempt to not pay a lawyer’s bill, a doctor’s bill, or even a mechanic’s bill… but apparently only because the system prevents it. With comics, the technology makes it easy, and that makes it justifiable to change the system, even if the artist didn’t enter willingly into this system. Josh *is* right — it’s bullying, in a way. It’s using power because it’s available, without regard for those working in the current system. It’s not an agreed upon exchange of goods or services.
eep. Dunno what happened with formatting there. Not shouting, I assure you. 😉
@Conor/Gobo but presumably someone still has paid for the original to scan it? unless it was physically stolen, there is still one original copy, and the others only exist as data–if I steal a car or a loaf of bread then someone will demonstrably have lost something, but if I download a file then the original is still where it was…that is different don’t you think?
"On the other hand Cory Doctorow is, and always has been, full of crap. "
How so? I’ve read a bunch of his stuff on boingboing and some of his novels. I’d nitpick with some of his open/closed systems arguments but overall you can’t argue with his success. He started out as a relative unknown and built an audience on boingboing, still gives away all his work for free yet cracks the NY Times bestseller list every time. Genuinely interested in counter points to his arguments about digital distribution.
@Asteraceae: The SCAN is the new unpaid for copy. And they exist in the thousands.
It’s not at all different.
@astea That’s the difference between theft and piracy. Piracy is a lot more like counterfeiting than theft. Still wrong.
@josh–well said.
@jarrett–no you would not. There would always be a reason and a justification from pirates. Thats just the nature of what they do and a root of the debate.
the saddest thing is that there is so much justification and twisting of ethics. if you are going to steal, man up and admit to what and who you are. You won’t earn any respect, but at least you’re honest with yourself and maybe something will kick in. There is no revolution, there is no protest..you’re just hiding in the shadows and taking because its easy.
"Sadly, You won’t get better art. You will get less art. It will become an unaffordable position for many artists"
I’d very vigorously argue this point. We’ve been told for centuries that the next bit of technology will be the end of art. We still have books. We still have movies. We still tell stories. We still have broadcast television. We will still have comics. The only thing that changes is the distribution method. The agreed upon system is going to change whether the powers that be adapt with it or not. Making a living as an artist has always been hard. As for avoiding paying bills, I’d aargue that point as well. I’d rather read up on my car on the internet and try to fix it myself than pay a mechanic. Sure, I might fuck it up, but that’s the upshot and risks of widely available information.
On the subject of major companies ad-supporting bootleg sites, someone should definitely step in and police that. If the sites become financially unfit to maintain, then they cease to operate in their current mode. The idea that major businesses are funding, in anyway, these kinds of sites is mind-boggling to me.
Meanwhile, Mark Waid talks sense about this subject.
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=28129
first off i dont pirate comics ,i like the feel of print media in my hands .now i am sorry but they shed no tears when they charge me 3.99 for books we know the could charge less for.so i am not going to worry about kids geting there paws on comics for free, simple as that
@wallythegreenmonster I’m not saying it will go away but it would significantly reduce the problem. It’s a proven system. Music piracy was pretty much the ONLY way people got music there for a while. It’s still quite rampant but significantly decreased thanks to digital distribution like iTunes, eMusic, Amazon, etc. The way I see it, take away the excuses. Take away any argument other than "I want this and don’t want to pay for it" and you help solve the problem. Telling people they are bad won’t make them stop.
I’ve seriously considered many times: Go to the LCS, buy my stack, immediately box said stack, download torrents, move to iPad, enjoy. People with less guilt than me would just cut out that first half because its frankly easier. They don’t see it as stealing because they don’t see the artists not paying their bills.
@Conor hmm, i’m not sure..it’s difficult because we are now not speaking of something in the physical world, surely the scan is a very different thing to the actual copy? i really think it gets us into murky waters trying to argue it on this basis. to call it theft i think there has to be an identifiable ‘victim’–who do we say it is stolen from, the comic shop? the artist/publisher? it’s too diffuse a notion for me… very abstract. besides, i think you even underestimate it–more like millions i would guess, in any case it’s a big problem…therefore, it seems like it would be criminalising vast numbers of people for what is only completely normal behaviour in the modern world, especially for young people. i think that would be a mistake, i don’t know what the answer is but i don’t think that’s it
@wallythegreenmonster No, I’m comparing the fact that the argument was "it’s illegal" is such a fickle one. What’s legal one day is illegal the next etc etc. I’m NOT comparing the moral evils to today’s comics to the travesties of history.
If you look at my post, I’m not taking a stand as to if it’s morally wrong or right. I’m just stating a fact that labelling something as illegal isn’t a good argument. If you want to argue morals as to whether comic book piracy helps/damages the industry to that extent, then I think that THIS is a good forum for such a discussion. But leave legality out of it. Appeal to the reasons behind the laws and the sense behind the legislation rather than the actual law istelf.
"If you download comics illegally and don’t think it’s wrong then pop by a convention next time and tell us face to face why it’s not?" and "If you can’t afford it, save. If you can’t wait for it, be patient. If you think it’s unfair… grow up. You’re not five years old."
Attitude like that is not the way to present this argument.
@Gobo that’s an interesting point, but isn’t that like saying that taking a picture of a £5 note is the same as forging one?
@mikespit – Nah, you miss my point on paying bills. If you read up on it on the Internet, and try to fix it yourself, that’s something different. That’s a different system. But you don’t go to a mechanic, RECEIVE SERVICE from him, and then decide, "no, I’m not going to pay you because I didn’t like the WAY you performed the service, even though you did the service as promised."
As for the art and artists — I’d disagree. Maybe you think there’s just as much art out there, but the comics market has been shrinking for a long time. And the number of novelists and comics writers who have day jobs have grown immensely. And that’s partially what I mean by "less art." Artists can’t focus on something as their sole activity — which, generally speaking, can create better, richer works of art.
There’s no real data on what massive piracy would do, but I gotta be honest. I’m fairly certain that if we all just decide that piracy was okay today, and everything and their uncle and cousin and sister got online and started downloading comics, there would be a massive sales drop. Also: to use ‘centuries’ of the past isn’t really a valid argument because we’ve never had the ability to simple ‘take’ a creative product and experience it in perfect quality — as we do now. There is no technological advance that changed creative media in this fashion.
That said: I do think that the music industry has done a decent job of adapting and making the system work. I think comics are capable of something similar, and it’s definitely time for them to step up. And, hey, I’ll even say that the next generation will adapt, and some will thrive. And maybe we’ll get more art. But none of that makes piracy ‘okay’ in my book — especially when its to the detriment of hard working artists.
@astea No, because the value in the comics is in the images, the value in the money is being able to pass it off as the real thing.
@Asteraceae: Who are the victims? It’s quite clearly: the artists, the publishers, the stores, etc. Anyone who should be paid when you consume the art and thus are not because it is being pirated/stolen/illegally copied. There’s nothing murky about it.
@Gobo i’m not sure, it’s more abstract–for example, speaking for myself i like books as physical objects, the romance of bound paper if you know what i mean. a file on a computer isn’t the same thing at all. so, it depends on the person and what they want from it
@Conor but that implies that they would definitely sold 1 comic for every 1 comic downloaded illegally, which you must know is nonsense… any of us can prove this right now by downloading something we don’t even want to read.
Anyone who thinks 99% of the pirates out there would pay for the content they would be otherwise stealing if torrent sites went offline tomorrow is living in a glorious fantasy land. Mitch Hedberg is still alive, Arrested Development went for 4 full seasons instead of 2 & a half, and Thor:TMA is uncanceled. Everything is wonderful and smiley and and completely divorced from reality. The truth is, if everyone was presented with the either/or choice to pay or not read, most would go "meh, no thanks" and walk off.
Most people don’t think comics are worth money (or at least the sort of $$ appraised); Dwindling sales should prove that. We’re called enthusiasts for a reason.
"Focus on selling to people who are actually going to pay money and buy the thing." –A successful game publisher. Somewhere. I dunno. I’ll look the interview up later. If I have to.
I don’t know if I’ve ever read a comments thread this long without losing interest halfway through. It’s definitely an interesting debate.
I tend to agree with Captain Primate on the fact that more data is needed to make any definitive statements about the specific effects of pirating on artists’ revenue from comics.
I also agree that the myriad excuses from people who defend pirating are just that: excuses. Bad justifications. It’s pretty safe to say that stealing is wrong. I don’t mind admiting that I have pirated comics in the past, for most of the reasons cited above (money, wanting to try before I buy, etc). Those factors make the temptation to pirate comics very great indeed. They don’t, however, make it right.
@asterceae No one’s saying that one pirated comic equals one lost sail. You are clearly missing the entire argument. The point is don’t steal what you haven’t paid for, and No you are not entitled to download things to "try them out", "because you don’t have a LCS", or "because you don’t have money." Sorry to tell you but you aren’t going to have money to buy everything you want. It’s called life, and scarcity. Deal with it.
She has every right to be angry at pirating, but its never going away. Its human nature why buy something when you can get it for free? I would put some of the blame on companies as they aren’t even doing much about it, sure digital comics are a start, but at the current price they’re being offered it’s not going to help much.
and seriously people justifying it as previews have a lot of nerve since there are a bunch of legal ways to get previews for trades and comics.
@RocketRaccoon thank you for jumping in there to be rude to me and misrepresent what i’ve said. that’s most helpful
another thing that piracy does. It makes comics as a profession less profitable. We’re already seeing our best creators working in movies and games to earn income that gives them what their talents and abilities are REALLY WORTH. Comics are delayed, creators bail because doing the books doesn’t provide for their families like they can get in a different industry. It’ll get worse, and the quality of the comics themselves will suffer.
@sorry. don’t take my comment as being rude or argumentative. I’m simply stating that the "one pirated comic equals one lost sale" is "nonsense", which in turn means that piracy doesn’t hurt sales is clearly missing the point. It doesn’t matter that one pirated comic doesn’t necessarily mean one less sale. The point is taking someone’s work product without their permission, and without paying for it is wrong, and it doesn’t matter that in reality the "pirated comic" isn’t a lost sale.
@Asteraceae
taking a picture or photocopy currency is illegal too
@RocketRaccoon so if we agree that (1.) no actual theft has occured, (2.) the comic publisher, artist, writer and store etc. have suffered no loss of income or property, and (3.) some people don’t otherwise have the resources to experience these pleasures [not me in fact, since you bring it up i’m fine thanks], how are you going to say it is an immoral thing? if we aren’t talking about the ‘reality’ of the situation what exactly are we talking about, and is it necessary or desirable to have the law get involved?
@LostArtist i didn’t know that, i’ll take your word for it though. but should it be?
Downloading a comic is not theft. It is not stealing. If it is against the law at all, it would be called "copyright infringement".
People who pirate stuff and then actually go out and pay for it after are the extreme minority (not that I think that makes it okay in the first place, but in response to that argument). Most people just crow about how clever they are to have beaten the system and gotten what they wanted for free. All it does it contribute to the sense of entitlement that makes our society uglier every day.
And there’s all kinds of stuff that is available for free legitimately, which makes the piracy bullshit even more offensive, because at a certain point, you can’t even say you’re doing just because you’re poor: you can watch most TV shows on the network’s websites within 24 hours of their airing; you can get books from the library; the entire Internet is made of stuff people encourage you to explore for free just to get you to do it on their site so they can get some traffic, ad revenue, publicity, what-have-you. If you resort to piracy, you’re not poverty-stricken or rebellious or any other romantic notion, you’re just an asshole.
@astercaeae No. I don’t argree that pirating comics isn’t theft. That’s not what I said. Simply, taking something you haven’t paid for is wrong. There’s no justification. The simple fact that pirates like to justify the theft speaks volumes about the inherent wrongness in piracy.
@camden. So calling it something different somehow makes it right?
Yes! It’s about freaking time this conversation be brought out in the open!
@Camden Copyright law exists to protect something called intelectual property. When you commit "copyright law infringement" you are stealing somebodies intellectual property. And it is very illegal.
This is why the only things i torrent are hugs
@dacampo the mechanic argument was a bad analogy to begin with and I think the peril of these discussions is we start trading false equivalencies when thetruth is you are right digital media is completely unprecedented. You also say that if tomorrow you woke up and everyone thought piracy was ok we’d be in trouble (paraphrasing, I’m typing on my phone) the reality is the world has embraced file sharing and every report says that it increasing every year. The comics industry is shrinking sure, and I attribute that more to it’s cyclical nature and in general people shying away from physical media. As for artists having day jobs I sympathize but I think that shrinkage wages are a symptom of far greater problems like affordable healthcare and a global ecconomic downturn but that’s a whole other thread. The fact is creators have been trotting out t
piracy as an excuse for decades and there’s never been any compelling evidence to suggest a clear link unless of course you count the hatchet jobs from riaa mpaa
@Camden–Copyright infringment (which is basically stealing someone else’s intellectual property) is a Federal Crime with extremely severe penalities. Petty theft is a civil crime.
so basically its worse.
I´m sure lower sales caused by piracy and many other (not illegal) reasons affect the companies ability to support lower profile series. ¿But does a download equals a sale?. For example, If issues of Thor The Mighty Avenger weren’t available online would that automatically mean better numbers for the book to keep it on the shelves?. I agree there have to be stronger laws against people who profit illegally from the works of others (like the case of ads on pirate sites), but I think many companies are using the piracy issue to justify their inability to attract new audiences in the face of new market and distribution behaviors.
@astrea 1) No theft has occured but you have just taken a counterfeit item 2) "no loss"? now you have to prove that 0 people who pirate would otherwise buy it. 3) If someone doesn’t have money to buy comics, then no comics for them. Comics are a luxury, no one needs comics.
How would you feel if I made a copy of your house keys, came into your house and watched your TV? Is that immoral? 1) No theft has occured, you still have your keys. 2) I haven’t cost you any money 3) I can’t afford HBO and I wanted to watch True Blood.
@RocketRacoon -I did not write that because it’s copyright infringement and not stealing that it is okay.
@KingYoda – Of course copyright infringement is illegal. I did not write that it wasn’t. As a legal matter though, it is not stealing. It is not theft. The correct term is copyright infringement. That is just a fact.
@RocketRaccoon theft (i believe) is depriving someone of the use of or a benefit from an item of property, either by force or other means–not applicable here i think.
@Gobo no, the burden of proof is on the prosecution in criminal cases. your argument is specious, although i think you’re mostly joking–i wouldn’t be complaining about ‘a theft of my keys’, that would be a completely different argument about trespass, etc.
I see a lot of people saying "like iTunes" or "as good as iTunes." Rather than re-inventing the wheel, why don’t publishers partner with Apple to sell comics through iTunes? I mean, really, you’ve got a huge iTunes customer base and a successful method of distributing content. Why try to mimic that with an inferior also-ran? It’s also relatively easy to buy content, so people, who are inherently lazy, use it a lot. They’ve passed $1 billion in sales.
That said, I hate iTunes. I think it sucks ass. I run it on a PC and hate every second of having to use it. It is stupid and cannot keeps apps separated between different user accounts and devices. Every time I update it, it can take upwards of 3 HOURS to backup my device’s content. This applies to my iPhone and iPad. It is f-ing maddening. The DRM restrictions are ridiculous. The sound quality of some of the music I’ve purchased (and I haven’t purchased a lot) was poor, and the volume levels are too low. When my contract is up I may go Android to get away from this stupid crap. But there are millions of people who seem willing to put up with the bullshit, so I guess I would call it commercially successful.
Also, using iTunes doesn’t mesh with non-Apple devices easily. And Android is growing…
@convoy83–its fascinating that people justify breaking a current law because "it might change someday". I would pay an admission fee to hear that in a court room. "BUT BUT officer…i’m not speeding….the limit might change someday in the future!!!!" yeah um…
Your point about fonts is well meaning but kinda wrong. When you buy a font you buy a license to use it for whatever. The logo is a unique thing and those issues have more to do with who drew and sold the font than who uses it.
@wallythegreenmonster if someone does that they are probably invoking morality rather than law as the arbiter of their actions
the font thing was loosely based on the fact that DC owns the font for Telescoping type As used in Superman Books and are quite active about unlicensed use of it or derivatives that are too similar to it.
@convoy83 Just because copy right/public domain laws change doesn’t mean you don’t have to follow the current law. If you don’t like the current law, then you free to fight it in court or through congress. The only time disobeying the law is an acceptable form of protest is in cases of extreme violation of human rights such as interracial marriage.
I agree that legislating against piracy won’t help. I agree our copyright laws need updated to create a richer public domain. I disagree with your apparent claim that these laws are so egregiously restrictive that disobeying them becomes morally sound.
Nice. Again a very Westernized perspective, but eloquent all the same as expected.
Just wonder what their stance on Doujinshi* might be.
Some Doujinshi I have purchased in my travels to Asia in the past (years ago so protected under statute of limitations) featured very well written crossovers between private IPs and big mainstream ones like Marvel and DC.
*Doujinshi are essentially fancomics equivilant to fanfiction.
@Simon, those hugs were uploaded without my consent. Do not torrent them!
The problem I’m seeing here is that it has devolved into trying to justify piracy or express how vehemently opposed to it you are. The original post was about Colleen Doran coming out in favor of a law to help combat piracy. It was paired with Josh’s supposition that title’s on cusp of having enough readership might be being cancelled.
On Colleen’s thoughts, I would say that piracy is already illegal. A new law probably won’t make it more illegal, and it won’t even hurt illegal file sharing. In a best case scenario, it will shut down some torrent sites. And a few months later there will either be other torrent sites or there will be another way to share files.
On Josh’s thoughts, I think it’s a good question to ask: How does file sharing affect sales? The gut reaction is that comic shops are now competing against free, online sources, and of course sales are going to suffer. The competing idea is that since the print copy is the most desirable, spreading the digital copy around just makes more people aware of and more likely to buy the print. That’s not an unusual marketing ploy, so I won’t say that it’s false, but I will say that it doesn’t matter. I would love to see the issue studied and have real numbers to replace guesswork on how digital piracy affects print sales, but in the end it will not add any legality or morality to on-line file sharing. At the end of the day, it still won’t be legal, it still won’t be moral, and, in all likelihood, it will keep on happening anyway.
So what to do? I have a hard time believe that a new law will help with something that’s already illegal. But the real question isn’t how to keep people from file sharing. The question is how to keep comic companies, or, maybe more importantly, comic creators as profitable as possible. I don’t know how to do that, but I do think that chasing after file-sharers is kind of like swinging a bat at swarm of bees. And I suspect, but again, I’d like to see numbers, that Free vs. Paid is not the only reason why comic piracy is rampant. There are a lot of advantages to digital files aside from the fact that you can get a lot of them for free. I think there will always be people who prefer the print, but I think that number might go down over time. There’s a lot of concern that a digital trend will hurt the Local Comic Book Shop, and it probably will. But fighting the trend on that basis will just lead to more piracy. I’m afraid that some people see the established business model being threatened by new technology, and their impulse is to dig in and fight for the current model. I believe the model will change regardless of how hard we fight it. The challenge is to find a better model without raking the industry over the coals in the process. I hope that happens, but conversations like this sound kind of dismal because they seem to divide people into two camps: Piracy vs. the Status Quo. I don’t think either are workable. Piracy exists because the Status Quo isn’t what everyone wants, but if Piracy defeats the Status Quo, then we have nothing.
I think eventually there will be enough love of the art form that a way will be found to support it. I just hope it doesn’t take too long and it doesn’t hurt too many people.
Does piracy hurt comic artists? There may not be research on this point, but there is anecdotal evidence that it has hurt similar creators in the past. In the 1800’s as printing became much more available and cheap, it was quite common for works to be imported from other countries and get reprinted by unscrupulous printers for sale. The printer made good money, which the creator saw almost none of. Dickens and Dumas were both famous victims of this practice; Dickens event went so far as to travel to America and stump for international copyright recognition. The main reason Congress didn’t support it at the time was because there wasn’t much American IP to protect (Washington Irving being about the only major author at the time worth protecting), while Americans benefited from cheap editions of foreign books. It was just as bad a justification then as it is now, and in Dumas’ case he died nearly penniless because of the theft of his books (it also briefly robbed him of fame, as many editions outside of France didn’t even carry his name). As for the Steve Lieber example, his reaction to piracy, while laudable, is also extremely exceptional. It’s just as fallacious to site that as proof, IMHO, as it is to site Radiohead and NIN, though obviously for different reasons. Finally, this attitude that the law is stupid, therefore doesn’t need to be followed? Come on, I hear this from 7th and 8th graders all day, and not for any principled reason either. Comments like some of the less reasoned ones here make me understand better why they feel like they can flaunt rules; if adults don’t respect rules, why should they? Copyright oppresses no one and puts no one in chains or threatens one’s life. It isn’t perfect, but it’s the best idea we’ve got until a better one comes along.
@Ottobot – arbitrary numbers like 99% aside, I don’t think anyone thinks that if torrent sites were all taken offline tomorrow, there’d be some kind of surge in sales. For me, it’s more about not making it acceptable so that it becomes universal. We know digital distribution is going to happen, but that doesn’t mean that we, as consumers, can disrespect creators by saying, "sorry, fellas, paradigm shift — I’ll pay when you figure it out." I’d rather honor the system and pay artists, and work with them to move to a new arena. Why? Because we choose the kind of world we build here, and I don’t want to create a world in which artists’ are not paid for their works.
@mikespit – The mechanic analogy works fine on the broad level I’m talking about. With a film, you watch a trailer, read reviews, and then you purchase a ticket. You don’t always like the film, but you pay for the experience. Similarly, you take your car to the mechanic, he agrees to the service, and if he provides the promised service, you pay him accordingly. If you suddenly decide that you don’t want to pay the mechanic, you could be sued in court because the mechanic DID provide the promised service. In the case of downloaded comics, you’re getting the service FIRST, then deciding it’s not worth paying for, and in most cases (as Doran notes) the artist has no recourse. It IS different from a mechanic in many ways, but I’m trying to keep it very broad here. The artist is making one product, but they have to sell it many times in order for it to be profitable. That’s the agreed-upon system. But if it can be paid for once, scanned and redistributed with NO subsequent compensation, then there’s a huge paradigm shift. And big industries may be able to survive and change, but smaller, independent artists may not be able to survive that shift. A month of reduced income would hurt me insanely! I can’t imagine how I could survive while trying to figure out a whole new system that DOES NOT work for everyone yet, Doctorow’s and NIN’s aside. 😉
maybe people should make these things which we all love for pleasure and not for profit: how about that! a lot of people do in fact. why does anyone have to get rich doing it? why do we need massive corporations to exist just so that artists can do what should come naturally to them and be reward in itself? do we think if Marvel and DC go out of business that will be the end of the art form? i think, probably not.
@BC1 That’s an interesting bit of history, but I wonder if it’s directly applicable to the current situation. In the 1800’s, you wanted a book: printed words on paper. Once you had that, you wouldn’t buy it again just because it was issued from a different press. With on-line piracy the product being "sold" is substantially different then the original product. The industry line is that the print is preferable, and, if that’s indeed the case, who’s to say that letting someone see a digital copy won’t inspire them to buy the physical? But even if that’s the case, it will not make it morally or legally justifiable. The problem is that we’re dealing with new situation, and it’s hard to find direct parallels in history because on-line distribution is a completely different animal than anything that has come before.
Illegal file sharing definitely eat into profits when: the Print version is definitely preferable (to the end user) than the digital and the primary factor is getting a pirated copy is price. I don’t imagine that both of those are true 100% of the time. I do imagine they are true a significant amount of the time. But those times where they are not true, when the end user prefers a digital version for other reasons or the reason for downloading is not price but, perhaps convenience, then the comic book companies stand to make a lot of money by having a digital model in place. Enough to make up for the remaining piracy? I don’t know. But I sure would love it if the comic industry would try it so that we could find out.
@asteraceae–you sound like someone who’s never tried to earn a living from creating something. Why should people spend all their time and efforts to produce entertainment for people like you if they can’t earn a living at it? People with talents are obligated to work for pennies just so you can have something for your pull list? Wake up.
Did you read the article? Doran is talking about being a 20 yr industry pro who can’t afford health insurance. That is a sad state of affairs that this industry is that bad. If she didn’t love what she did, she’d have found a better paying job in that time frame for sure.
@kingyoda Again, I’ve yet to say anything about whether or not I think that pirating a comic is morally right or wrong. To make it explicitly clear, I think that pirating comics is MORALLY WRONG and I believe that there needs to be a reformation of copyright laws in regards to the growing digitalization and distribution of media.
What I was highlighting was that the argument of why people shouldn’t pirate comics should be because of a moral issue, not necessarily a legal issue. Your original claim was that it was just because it was illegal. I merely disagree with the avenue you tried to argue your point, not necessarily your point itself.
@Rob3E – so let’s make this comparison: a legal copy of “Tale of Two Cities” costs $.50, part of which benefits Dickens. A pirated copy costs $.25, none of which benefits him. A person, knowing the difference, buys the cheaper copy, saying “If Dickens wants to sell more of his books, he should make them cheaper”. To be fair, it’s hard to say how many people knew the difference unless they had two different versions to compare, but is this not similar to the reasoning of a vast majority of pirates today?
You know, with such vehemence on the matter of pirating comics, I’m curious as to what the people here think about selling their comics back to the shop and the shop going back and reselling those old issues. This could even apply to people who collect comics then later go on and auction them off for ridiculous profits.
What are your thoughts on that? You talk much about "hurting the industry" and "affecting the artists and creative teams" but I don’t believe that anyone other than the seller receives a "piece of the pie" in those transactions.
Collen Doran is entitled to the fruits of her labor. A Distant Soil is her property and she is free to distrubute her work however she wishes. Other people do not have this right, unless it is with her consent. Period. If you want to read her work, you have to do it on her terms.
@azrael – I think it’s apples/oranges for a number of reasons.
1) Digital piracy means infinite replication at high quality. The secondary collectibles market only exists after the book was sold the first time, so the book was already made or broken on that initial set of sales, and only that same number can return into the secondary market (which brings you into the stores, which gets retailers money, which they can spend on publishers’ material, etc.).
2) No one is waiting for someone to resell a Thor comic that just came out. They might as well buy their own new copy. The secondary market is for collectibles, not new content. People only buy used stuff if it’s a) more valuable than when it was new and b) it’s cheaper than when it was new. The first doesn’t apply with digital, and the second… well, the only cheaper comics are generally "quarter bin" comics, which are comics with no resale value that the retailer already purchased from the publisher and are selling at a loss.
@daccampo – Yeah, I’m not arguing whether or not piracy is moral or not. It’s not. I don’t. I’m saying it’s stupid to blame poor sales on piracy because this is made under the arbitrary assumption that every seeder or leacher would’ve paid for the comic if they had no other options. Colleen Doran seems to think pirates are stealing food outta her mouth. I’m saying she can be naive if she wants to, but from what I know and who I know that are the pirating types, the vast, vast majority are accumulators. Not collectors. Not readers. Certainly not patrons of the arts. They amass media, more to sit atop their pile of impedimenta then truly enjoy any specific work (any pirates offended by this description? Prove me wrong and start mailing checks or paypaling directly to the writers, artists, colorists and letters of the books you enjoy).
Also, do we know what bill Colleen is defending? Because the only internet-related legislation I’ve read about recently was this bit.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-segal/stop-the-internet-blackli_b_739836.html
If it’s not, good for her, I’m just saying, this is the only thing that came to mind when I read her schpeel.
@asteraceae…if you read Colleen Doran’s original statements, you will recall that this isn’t a discussion of getting rich but of making a living at all. Sure, a very few comic creators get rich. Most of them decidedly do not; some are barely getting by. They are, in fact, doing exactly what you seem to wish–doing work they love rather than work that will make them a great deal of money.
But they’d rather have both, and the vast majority would probably be disgusted by any kind of assertion that they are nobly working for the enjoyment of others.
You are not entitled to enjoy "these things we all love" for any reason other than if you have paid for that entertainment. No one owes you anything, least of all the sweat of their brow or the ideas of their creation. If there were no way to make money by creating and selling art, then "these things we all love" would go away.
@wallythegreenmonster you are right, but that doesn’t mean i haven’t created something for its own sake; i agree about health insurance, that is of course a terrible thing but i’m in the UK and we have the NHS… this probably isn’t the place to say so but i have always believed the US should adopt a similar system, though of course there are plenty of problems here too.
@bansidhewail thanks for quoting me twice i’m not sure i see the significance but i can only take it is a compliment. you’re also making the rather ungracious error of talking as though I personally have done something wrong–i am speaking in the abstract, about principles; i would appreciate it if you recognised this. as to your point about making a living, that’s surely a matter between her and her employers, or about the way she structures her own business if self-employed? i’d love to see her do well, but maybe it just isn’t something that can be a sole source of income in modern society. like many "things we all love", for example tapestry-weaving, its perhaps nowadays (or soon) only viable as an amateur activity. maybe this isn’t even a bad thing, maybe we’ll see better quality stuff who knows.
@BC1 Your analogy hasn’t changed. You’ve just made it more specific. The reason I don’t like it is this: You are talking about a person choosing between two functionally identical items, with the only differences being price and who gets the money. If digital piracy were that straightforward, then I agree that it would be much easier make comparisons and draw conclusions, but in this discussion we are talking about two different, but similar items. Mind you, I am not making a justification for piracy. I am simply pointing out that the item being downloaded is functionally different from the item being sold. It makes it harder to make direct comparisons between the current situation and the one you bring up.
My point is that we can make educated guesses about how digital piracy affects print sales, but they’re still guesses. The situation is not directly analogous.
azrael1213 You apparently didn’t read my response. Your argument was that something being illegal isn’t a good enough reason not to do it. I disagreed with you. We live in a law abiding country. If we all picked and chose which laws we would follow based on our own moral convictions, we would have anarchy. The fact that something is illegal should be enough not to do it, unless you are exercising civil disobedience in an attempt to change the law. We can argue until we are blue in the face whether piracy affects aales (which we have been doing all day), but the fact is none of us know. So instead of following gut feeling, we should probably fall back on the law to guide our behavior.
You can mince words anyway you like it still doesn’t make piracy a right or moral choice. If you are in a situation where you can’t afford to buy comics tough luck get an extra job, give up something else you may really want to read comics but I guarantee you you can live without them. If you want to have some knowledge of what you’re buying before you buy it, read reviews or look at the enourmous amount of previews legally available online. If you aren’t happy with the current digital model well it’s only been around for a few months give them some time to adapt the model. Anybody who acts as though they are entitled to whatever they want without paying for it sounds like any number of high school students that I see on a daily basis. Spending money on anything is a risk deal with it. From time to time I see a stinker of a movie doesn’t mean I should get my money back just that next time maybe I’ll make a better choice. Whether there is a 1:1 ratio between downloads and sales or a 1:10000 ratio it’s still sales being lost and therefore money being taken out of the pocket’s of the creators and not just the creators but everyone who works on the product along the way from the editors to the copy boys (if such a thing still exists.) Now I know that the second I post this you are going to rip apart my arguements with more justifications for your illegal activity but that’s all it will really be so I’ve gotten this off my chest and I’m happy.
Piracy should be seen as free market research by publishers. "How do people want ther comics?" = On the internet.
hahahaha, no, how do people want their comics?=free
It seems illegal but no one gets punished for it.
But don’t cry when they finally figure out a way to punish you for your theft.
And when this much money is being lost, they will eventually find a way.
It won’t be the wild west up on this internet thing forever.
@asteraceae–i’m jealous of NHS. America is a total embarrassment in how we treat our own citizens. Its a stretch to even call ourselves a civilized nation at times.
the problem with comics becoming a hobbyist profession is the amount of work it takes to create one. My buddy who is very successful working in animation (i guarantee youv’e seen films he’s worked on) has been creating his personal graphic novel on the side…but its taking hi 5 years to produce one story because its nights and weekends. The best thing about America is the opportunity to be able to make living doing any weird thing you want, including drawing funnybooks to earn a living. If the industry evolves to make that no longer possible, we won’t have a whole lot of great comics to read because no one will have the time to make them.
@wallythegreenmonster well, it isn’t at all a perfect system but it’s something, and probably we tend to take it for granted. but i love the USA too, at least the idea of it; i would have to respectfully disagree with you slightly, i think the best thing about America is your constitution, one of the founding documents of my own philosophy (i have a few amendments of my own of course!)… this informs my opinion about what is called ‘piracy’, i really think some people commenting here could do to think on the principles it enshrines before they would throw away "a pearl richer than all their tribe"… i hear what you say about it being [very] difficult and believe me, you’ll have to go a long way to find someone more sympathetic to the struggling artist than me–but it’s always been that way hasn’t it. Beethoven had to teach the piano to the daughters of aristocrats to support himself writing symphonies (i think there was a lot of swooning and bodice-ripping too so it can’t have been all bad!), personally i think the old Greeks had the right idea as is so often the case; there was a kind of lottery held amongst the wealthier citizens of the polis, to determine who would bear the costs of staging the dramatic festivals called Lenaia and Dyonisia. it was understood that to be selected in this way was high honour in itself
The argument from the movie companies, music industry, and now comics seems to be that the world is full of flagrant thieves who would rather steal than pay for their product. They seem to say that if it weren’t for these illegal downloads there would be millions more in sales every year. I personally don’t download anything illegally, I’ve never been to a site with illegal content, and I know very few people who have, so it doesn’t effect my buying at all. Shutting down every one of these sites tomorrow would not result in a significant amount of extra income for these publishers or creators. People who steal will either steal of do without. The entertainment dollar can only stretch so far and something had to give as the entertainment options became more varied: video games, comics, movies, music, and so on, all have to share from the same revenue pool; it’s not an ever-expanding ocean of money out there. The internet always seems to catch the blame, but creators and companies never seem to look at a sagging economy, lack of interest, or a lack of creativity and not supplying product people actually want to pay for as being factors. Most current music stinks. Movies are nearly all rehashes of everything that’s been done before, and a whole lot of comics just aren’t worth buying.
A lot of fans may seem to have severe entitlement issues, but so do a lot of corporations and creators who are spoiled on the idea of the public lapping up anything they put out and lavishing them with money.
@Dacampo It’s still a bad analogy because the mechanic’s work once it has been completed can’t be propagated across the world to magically fix other cars and the mechanic doesn’t receive royalties for the car he’s fixed for every year it remains operational. Your broader point I think is that products and services should be paid for and I agree. Again I’m willing to pay for quality digital products and services, I have and will continue to do so on iTunes and Steam if they provide convenience and ease of use. As an aside when people use "iTunes for comics" I think they just mean shorthand form of a comprehensive digital distribution network that’s priced according to what the market will bear. Like I said I’m not interested in debating whether or not copying bits is moral or not. You have your idea of morality and I have mine and neither us are likely to change eachother’s minds. What I am interested in is coming up with a solution that gets artists paid and provides consumers with media they are willing to pay for. Just scanning through this thread there are TONS of excellent ideas from bundling comic download codes with print issues, cross promoting with movie and TV on and on. The virtue of these discussions is that hopefully publishers take note and adapt these strategies. If they don’t well that’s their loss. You can disagree, but I think the vast majority of artists will continue to create regardless of where their royalty checks come from (ad revenue, merchandise, licensing) I’m confident that the creators most adaptable to change like the Doctorow’s the NINs The Steve Liebers of the world will continue to make a living, because it absolutely can be done, it’s just that change is scary especially when it concerns your ability to make a living. That’s nothing new. I’d be willing to bet money that everyone in this thread makes a living doing something that tomorrow could be rendered obsolete by technology. That’s a risk we all take when we learn a skill, but that’s been the case for centuries and isn’t likely to change.
The argument doesn’t work.
Technology has not made creative writing obsolete at all and never will. It is one of the few jobs that can never be replaced.
Technology has made stealing from stores obsolete.
The reason music piracy has shrunk is because services like iTunes offer a huge variety of music at a fair price. Movies and tv show piracy has remained high because the prices are still not fair. The prices for online comics are still too high, and there is no one stop shop for all offerings. Digital files are not collectors items and will not appreciate over time. We are quickly moving into a time when, for better or worse, content is a commodity. Content providers need to bite the bullet, and figure out a way to get by in this new world.
That’s just… never seen that before.
Sorry, I broke your comment section. You think that is weird, if you highlight my post with your cursor, the overlapping text goes away and it becomes readable…crazy stuff. I guess it was just my day to do something special…
BTW, that was my first post your website…here’s to starting off with a bang! And I just want to say, thanks to you Josh, Ron, and Connor for making a discussion like this possible. You guys deserve a big pat on the back. Really quickly, I loved your video podcast about superheroes gone bad, awesome stuff. Now please do a video podcast on Grant Morrison’s Batman saga, that would be super-interesting to get you guys’ take on that story. Threadjack over.
@Tweeter81 although some of the post was unreadable. I think your thoughts are really spot on.
@tweeter81–your comments added too much to the conversation. It broke teh interwebs. =)
I agree with you that it is a sad state that the attitudes of justifying and excusing the blatant ripping off of artists is so prevalent. Like i said before, if they could at least admit to what and who they are without hiding behind all these fake justifications…at least that would be something. A traditional pirate new exactly what he was and what he was doing….21st century digital pirates think they are fake revolutionaries.
Thanks, you two, for backing me up. I know my comments came on kinda strong, (tact has never been my strong-suit), but I get a really bad (and sad) vibe when I read some of the garbage that the modern-day pirates are posting. Its just like people deciding not to stop at stop signs or signals, deciding not to pay their income taxes, taking video of people dying in the street rather than lift a finger to help them, etc. When we, as a society, get to a point where the majority of the people don’t follow the rules, then we will have a complete breakdown of society (Walking Dead-style, but without the zombies…hopefully). This piracy thing is just a harbinger of what is to come.
@wally – I totally agree with your take on digital pirates (fake revolutionaries – right on!) thinking they are somehow entitled and justified in their actions, "because everyone else is doin’ it…"
There are a TON of comments on this already that I’m going to read through, but I’ll also throw in my 2 cents.
I go to the comic store every week, and I drop between $20-200. I want to support the creative teams that are able to bring me great work. I also go and download everything I bought because I want to read it and carry it around easily. The new Shazam hardcver is a nice piece to keep on my coffee table, but its freaking heavy!
I feel that if I bought an actual copy of it that I should be able to download it and use it. I could more easilly make the argument before digital distribution became mainstream, but now I feel like a dirty pirate because I’m not paying twice for something that I bought once.
I do occasionally download things that I have never heard of that has an interesting title to see if I like it. 9/10 I don’t. When I do I go and actually purchase the book (if its available at my LCS) and the subsequent books that follow.
On that same note, Radical comics a lot of times will have a first issue of a book only cost $1. I’ll ALWAYS buy those books regardless of how cheesy they look because they are cheap and might be good so I won’t bother downloading to try them. If more comics cost $1 I think more people would be more willing to give them a shot.
The price point for comics right now is like the rent. Too damn high! Listen . . . that whine is the sound of a nerd trying to decide on buying a new book he’s never heard of or just stick with Amazing Spider-man. The price of comics is Too damn high! I would probably give more books a shot if comics as a whole were much cheaper. Even going back to $3 is not enough of a rollback. If I’m going to try random books out they need to be MUCH cheaper.
I feel for comic book creators in this time that try to do this as a job. I really do. But I also feel for the people that want to enjoy the creators work because the economy is in the toilet and everyone is going to suffer.
I agree with Ms. Doran almost completely. I think that piracy has ruined our economy. If that weren’t true then artists wouldn’t say that it was better to be in the business before all this started. I believe piracy should be enforced more harshly. If artists want to give their art for free that’s their choice. People do not have the right to steal other peoples work. Personally I can no longer afford to buy comics because they are too expensive especially when the quality of issues fluctuate from issue to issue forcing me to feel that it is not worth the price of admission. I can not deny that I have been tempted to download comics for free so that I can still experience them or get a feel for if they are worth buying or not but there are other ways such as reading them in trade, check the ratings online, skim through them at the shop. There’s ways around it but people like taking the easy way out. Nothing will change if we don’t make it change and that won’t happen until the government steps in.