Scans_Daily…again

So it was brought to my attention on Twitter that Scans_Daily is still talking about me. Or perhaps more accurately, talking about not talking about me.

To recap: Seven years ago, someone decided to post half of an issue of X-Factor which I openly begged people not to spoil. Because it was so much of the issue, I brought it to Marvel’s attention. As a copyright defender, I felt obliged to do so (just as people inform me when they discover my books on pirate sites.) I didn’t approach the mods myself because I wasn’t the copyright holder and thus didn’t have the right to.

My expectation was that Marvel would have the pages taken down. Instead Livejournal, who hosted the site, shut down the entire thing because of copyright violation.

Did they blame themselves for causing the site to be taken down? Of course not. They blamed me. And to get back at me, once they reconstituted the site elsewhere, they declared my works were to be banned from the site forever. (They also sabotaged my Wiki page, cried out for boycotts, and flooded my website with diatribes, but that’s neither here nor there.) The ostensible reason was that it was out of respect to my wishes, even though it in fact flew in the face of my wishes. I specifically said that if they remained within the constraints of copyright, reproducing a couple panels or pages, I’d be fine with that. That if they wanted to reproduce more of something to which I owned the copyright, they simply had to come to me and ask. Nope. No go. No Peter David on Scans_Daily ever again, in order to “respect my wishes” that I never made.

So now it’s seven years later, someone asked about posting something of mine, and it’s thirty seven replies. Some people are being reasonable, and some are being dìçkš, which is pretty much the most that one can expect from the Internet.

Do I still believe I did the right thing? Of course. I did what I had to: I reported a copyright violation. If it had been ten pages of “Fallen Angel,” I’d have handled it myself, but I didn’t hold the copyright to X-Factor, so I told the folks who did. Was I expecting the site to be taken down? Good lord, no. I was quite new to it and had no idea that they were in violation of Livejournal’s term of service, which would result in them getting the heave ho.

If I’d known that they would get shut down, would I have done it differently? Yeah, maybe. I might have violated procedure and contacted the mods directly (although honestly, considering the amount of hostility that was fired off at me when I actually interacted with them, I’d have had no idea if they would’ve listened.) That’s always the oldest question, isn’t it. “If you’d known then what you know now.” It’s really a meaningless question because we all have to make our decisions based on the information we have at the time.

Do I regret anything? Yeah; I think I overreacted to the idiot who said they wanted me to die in a fire. That really pìššëd me off at the time. But I shouldn’t have let that get to me. That’s probably because the level of discourse on the Internet, and the world in general (*cough* Trump *cough*) has deteriorated so spectacularly that it’s hard to get a rise out of me anymore. I mean, when I had a stroke, one jerk declared that he was happy and hoped I’d die in a sea of my own šhìŧ. And I read that and just laughed. I’m 59 and insults from random jáçkáššëš just don’t bother me anymore.

In any event, if Scans_Daily still feels the need to keep punishing me for the actions that they took and refuse to accept that they caused, then fine. Whatever.

Hope that answers it.

PAD

ADDENDUM: Just for the record, if any of the Scans_Daily moderators wish to contact me directly at padguy@aol.com to see what can be worked out, I would be happy to speak to them. And for the record, I obviously don’t think everyone on Scans_Daily are idiots. The whole of no group could be idiots. Except Trump supporters.

19 comments on “Scans_Daily…again

  1. I’d like to consider myself one of the more tactful or respectful members of the Scans Daily community. I’m not the most frequent commenter and I very rarely post anything, myself.

    And honestly, there were things about that LiveJournal community that I disagreed with at the time. They had a separate community, for example, called full_scans_daily, posting entire issues. That I never agreed with. And I agree that it wasn’t cool that someone posted those X-Factor spoilers despite your pleading to the internet not to. Sadly, the internet being the internet, those kinds of pleas tend to incite people to do it out of spite.

    Honestly, I don’t think everyone there blames you for it shutting down. I certainly don’t. There were many other mitigating factors – like full_scans_daily. I think that was the big one.

    Since moving to Dreamwidth, I really believe the community has improved. They have very specific limits on how many pages of an issue can be posted. Violators of their rules are swiftly punished.

    The other thing is, from my understand, the lack of posting your work isn’t punishing you. I think the moderators made that rule partly in respect and partly out of fear. They’re iffy about allowing any of your work to be posted for fear that you’ll report it to higher-ups and the whole community will be taken down, like the Livejournal community did. Which is a shame because I’d love to share things like your runs on Aquaman, Hulk, Young Justice, Spider-Man 2099 (the original or the current series).

    S_D can be a good community. Just like any internet community (as you said), it has its thorns. But I really think it does a lot of good for the industry. It introduces books – new and old – to readers who might not have checked it out. Thanks to S_D, I want to check out Dan Slott’s Silver Surfer run. Many people started getting books like Saga thanks to seeing some scans. Sure, some final pages or spoilers in a comic from that week are posted, but they tend to open up a lot of discussion on the topic. And I know for absolute sure that if a similar situation like yours occurred and the writer/artist contacted a mod or commented, asking for it to be taken down? It’d be taken down in a heartbeat.

    As a long time fan of yours, I’m really sorry for both sides that this happened. I imagine all the newer members who have never seen your work and that saddens me a little.

    1. No. I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. I have stated any number of times that I would have no problem with postings that fell within standard copyright permissions. They are not interested in that. They are solely interested in keeping me off their site as payback for the fact that their own actions caused them to lose their other site in the first place. I would have no legal basis or, indeed, any basis in sanity, to complain about a couple of pages or panels being put up on the site. I have said this repeatedly, and been ignored repeatedly. Trust me: it’s punitive.

      PAD

      1. Would would standard copyright permissions be, though, when it comes to stuff like this? I don’t ask this sarcastically. I really don’t know.

      2. Asking permission of the copyright holder. How that happens depends upon who it is. DC has a whole department geared around requests for reprint rights, and I was told by them that their entire dictate was to say “no.” They claimed they NEVER granted reprint rights for so much as a panel, which I was somewhat incredulous to hear (that’s why DC has virtually no presence in my book on writing comics, although we did manage to get them to allow us to reproduce a couple of covers in the Stan Lee autobiography.)

        In the case of X-Factor, they’d have to ask permission of Marvel’s legal department. In the case of “Fallen Angel,” they would simply have to ask me, via email or whatever. Which of course they won’t do.

        PAD

    2. It’s pretty much payback and hatred, Nick. I’ve come across the new version of the site a few times due to social media links. I’ve seen several threads where Peter is referred to as He Who Must Not Be Named (or something along those lines) and newer members are told his works are not even to be discussed. The older crew also still tell the story as Peter got upset so he got the thing shut down.

  2. I wonder how much of the online “whatever I want should be free” goes back to Napster. While music is pretty different from comic book pages, I feel like Napster really and early popularized the idea that on the Internet people are somehow entitled to whatever they want for free, regardless of copyright or what not paying does to the artist. (In fact, a lot of the obnoxious comments from Napster fans (and others who download illegally) refer to how the artists are somehow “fat cats” and the Internet users are all poor and suffering and really want something but *really* don’t want to pay for it, so stealing is somehow okay.) Just a thought.

    1. Then trouble with that is that it focuses on the ‘don’t want to pay’ crowd as though there might not be another reason for using Napster-like services.

      Copyright holders are often their own worst enemies. It is hard to feel sorry for them as they whine about those evil downloaders when they have been sitting on older material for years and refusing to put it out on the market where people could buy it legitimately. People who do not wish to pay deserve all the contempt they get. I find it harder to point fingers at those who do wish to pay but aren’t being allowed to.

  3. If i’d been you, and i’d known that they’d get shut down, would i have?

    Yep.

    Anyone stupid enough to that flagrantly operate in violation of the ToS deserves what they get.

    Darwin Awards don’t just apply to the “Hey, Bubba – hol’ mah beer and watch this!” crowd.

  4. I’ve been following the relevant scans_daily thread of the other day and I strongly suspect the original poster is deliberately trolling, feigning ignorance of the rules to stir up trouble. I also suspect that it was that same poster who alerted PAD to the post having been made, as that person subsequently added a link to this very PAD post in his original message.

    I strongly urge both PAD, his supporters here, and scans_daily members to just drop the whole thing. Thank you.

    1. Or maybe he really WAS ignorant and wanted to find out why I was permanently banned from Scans_Daily.

      And yes, by all means, I could drop it. Or I could point out that they’re being idiots. That’s a tough call.

      PAD

      1. Ok, I was wrong about the tipping off. Even so, the OP asked again in the same thread whether it was okay to post from “Hulk’s End,” after a mod and several other members had said no. So either he’s really really stupid, or he’s trolling. I stand by my assertion.

        And no, Mr. David, it’s not a “tough call” whether to have posted here again to attack the community over something that happened seven years ago and to insinuate we have a hive mind.

        You’re Jewish, right? So am I. And in the Torah it says, “You shall not bear a grudge” (Leviticus 19). Good day to you, sir.

      2. Yes, it does say that. And considering that seven years have passed and they still will not let my work be reproduced on their website, you might want to say something to them about that. Because if anyone is holding a grudge, it is unquestionably them.

        PAD

    2. Actually, that was me that messaged him on Twitter. I didn’t want to stir the pot. I did it in the hopes that maybe the whole thing could be settled and the community could start posting some of PAD’s work.

      Sadly, that doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. Though after PAD himself said he wouldn’t mind, it looks like it’s more from the S_D moderator’s side now. If they lift the PAD ban, I’d love to have a celebratory Peter David Month, showcasing some favourite scenes from stuff like Aquaman, Young Justice, Hulk, Fallen Angel, etc.

  5. I guess that the site/ mods felt that since that there are so many sites out there that do the same thing that they did, they could get away with it. The odds of being caught, to them, were very low because who has time to look for every single violation and thus go after them?

    I don’t mind a page or two being posted , because it can help me to decide if I want to spend my money on something new or not. But to post an entire issue ( or almost )? uh, no. People who work in the comic industry sure as hëll don’t want this to be dome because that is basically working for free and no one can or will afford to do that. If too much money is being lost on stuff like this happening, then comics will disappear for good and no one wants that.

    The idiots who are still mad at you should be mad at themselves for setting themselves up for disaster/ failure. Of course, none of them will admit to that out loud. What did they think you or Marvel would say to them —” Thank you sir for posting an entire issue online for free, because we love the publicity and the loss of potential revenue because as a big company, one free issue won’t cost us money.” Morons.

    1. What did they think you or Marvel would say to them —” Thank you sir for posting an entire issue online for free, because we love the publicity and the loss of potential revenue because as a big company, one free issue won’t cost us money.”

      If you look back to the comments here (and other places) during the original controversy, that is exactly what many of the people attacking PAD did think – or at least, it was the rationalisation they put forward to attempt to justify their actions…

  6. Peter, thanks for all the frequent posts you’ve done lately (and in the shortest month of the year, no less!); it is a much appreciated throwback to an earlier time for this blog. 🙂

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