UPDATED 3/1, 9:43 PM–A request to the hit and runners. By that I mean the people who swing by for the express purpose of hurling blame, invoking Gail Simone, calling me names and departing. You might want to consider taking the time to read the thread. Read it in its entirety, read the most recent posts, whatever. The chances are you will already see your comments responded to (since the H&Rs are pretty much all saying the same thing) by myself, various fans, and Gail. Honestly, I don’t expect this message to have much impact on the H&Rs, but I figure it’s worth a shot.
Did you ever hear of Scans Daily?
I had not.
Kathleen informs me that it began as a site on Live Journal where individual scenes from comic books were put up and commented upon. Apparently, this included certain panels from “Young Justice” to which homoerotic subtext was ascribed. It’s a shame I never had a chance to see those. That would have been funny.
But somewhere along the way, it morphed into posters giving page by page summaries of new comics, complete with the entire pages. Writing a critical review and posting up a panel or a page to illustrate a point falls under fair use. Posting over half the book while saying, “This happened, then this happened, then this happened,” is not remotely fair use and a blatant copyright violation.
On an “X-Factor #40” thread on CBR, someone put a link to it. This put it on my radar, and–I suspect–on other people’s radar as well.
Conscientious people have reported to me when they see flagrant copyright violations of my work (typically entire Star Trek novels being posted online). So I did the same thing, informing Marvel of the scans.
Did Marvel then shut them down? No. Because before Marvel legal had an opportunity to do anything, the scans had already been removed for being a violation of terms of service of Photobucket, the site that enabled the posters to put up pictures on line. Perhaps the CBR links put the site on PB’s radar as well as mine.
I did, however, use my wife’s Live Journal account to make my presence known. A fan asked if I had informed Marvel about the scans. An honest question. I replied honestly. I said yes, I had, but that the scans were pulled before Marvel took any action.
Two days later, Scans Daily was shut down completely. Purely a guess: Photobucket complained to Live Journal and LJ said, “Enough’s enough.”
The reaction on the blogosphere? Peter David got Scans Daily shut down.
Well…no. Again: My intervention wound up having no impact. And besides, if anyone got Scans Daily shut down, it was the fans themselves. Some will own up to that reality. Many, I suspect, won’t.
PAD
• 
Luigi: The avatars are tied to a site where you can uload a pic and link it to your email; from then on whenever you post on a site that sunscribes to the service, it will appear as an avatar with your posts.
I can’t remember where the site is, offhand; most sites that subscribe to it will have a “Get an avatar” link somewhere about, though the webmaster here seems to have omitted to include one.
Queen Anthai Says:
March 1st, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Is ANYBODY here willing to quit playing “YOU SUCK”/”NO U” for five seconds and try to answer the question of what kind of internet framework could be developed to benefit both the creators and fans? I’d suggested a kind of “iTunes for comics” alternative. How many of you would be willing to pay, say $1.00 – $1.50 for a CBR or PDF digital copy of a comic? Or a certain price for a digital subscription?
How would someone even go about implementing a thing like this? (I fail at business models.)
—————————————
Depends if they’re marketed internationally or USA only for starters…
Personally, I hate reading A4 comic pages online, I like having the convenience of a paper comic in my hands, but there’s a generation out there who probably feel differently.
Technology is gradually coming up with better display devices, personally I’d still like to see faster/better/cheaper print capabilities. There’s one business model where a printer is too expensive for most individuals to own one, but your local comic shop buys or rents one and becomes a print on demand shop. Phone in your order, pick it up 24 hours later… (Actually, Diamond should look into this, as regards developing and leasing the printer tech. That way no one gets left behind…)
Basic digital comics, I’d guess that today either I-tunes or Amazon would be happy to leap into bed with DC or Marvel and supply a delivery service partnership. Not wanting to share and not getting their act together enough to provide a reasonable ‘service’ is a failing by both the big comic companies.
Meanwhile, new software is pretty, but I still prefer vBulletin 😛
Cheers.
So I actually read the first article, and several of the comments, and all I can say is that it doesn’t seem very likely that arguing with the market or bickering with a valuable, fickle and gossip-prone segment of it (scans_daily is choc full of high schoolers) is a good way to do good business. Just ask the music industry…
Whether or not you had anything to do with scans_daily’s removal, you might want to think about your message-to-market here. You know, that market which comprises, inter alia, the hit-n-runners who take the time to visit your page and write something.
Comics, like all entertainment and leisure activity, is highly substitutable. I’d think that would be an especially important market analysis point in the midst of an economic recession.
I have started to ‘wait for the trades’, as comics are now being written in 6 issue arcs, it makes sense to wait and read them that way, and without the interruption of ads. But, I still have to buy the event comics; such as final invasion etc to know what’s going on.
I’d love to see a 2 tier subscription system. I sign up with Marvel and/or DC (or your favorite indy) and pay for a web and trade package. As each issue is printed in the real world they send me a link to where I can access that issue online (such as Marvels DCU), then when the arc is finished the send me in the post, the collected edition, straight from a fulfilment house with only a small mark up, (but larger profit for them) rather than diamonds mark up.
Simple and painless and requires no new technology or marketing.
I have already download and paid for pdf copies of Write Now from TwoMorrows, and the reading experience was fine.
I have no idea what this would do to local comic book shops, whether this would introduce new customers, or cannibalize their existing footfall – maybe there needs to be some industry wide research.
The benefits to me – I get to read the comics I want as they come out so I know what is going on in each shared universe, and then have a handy hard back to keep on the shelf to reread. (I should point out that I have never wanted to torrent or download anything illegally)
The benefits to the publisher – marketed at the right cost, with subscription fees upfront, they would have a confirmed number of purchasers for each printing of the collected edition, priced independently from amazon/diamond.
The only possible losers; Diamond/ind comic shops. Maybe.
I have bought trades of stories that I would never have bought monthly’s of. Some I’ve bought subsequent trades, others have been dropped, (but they’ve still had my money).
PAD, what does your sales head think?
You s_d weiners need to get the hëll over yourselves.
Shame Shame Shame on you sir. Be a man and take the blame where it is due… Photobucket can shut itself off and has in the past.
The likelyhood is that Marvel is being the same spoil sport that cracked down on City of Heroes. And yes sir you did sell all of us who pony up every week out. If you don’t want to be blamed for the problem I charge you to find a way to fix it.
It was never ever about free comics but about convincing others to buy the comics we love be they old or new. I have never posted, but spent $1000s of dollars more on comics because of scans daily. Things I never would have bought or thought of buying. Sometimes the selling scene is not in the first 6 pages of a book and sometimes it is only 1 frame. And often there are golden oldies that are impossible to find and have not been nor ever will be reprinted.
Basically if you were reading the whole issue on scans daily not buying the book I guarantee you that you were not going to buy the book in the first place but if you weren’t sure you might read a great scene and add the next issue to your pull list.
If Comics cannot learn from the fate of the record industry it is doomed to be overtaken by those who can.
Well, tell you what: You can discuss them here.
Here’s what I’ll do: Every Wednesday, on this site, I will start a thread that says, “OUT THIS WEEK: DISCUSSION THREAD.” And people can come here and talk about whatever they want to whatever degree.
I’ll try it next Wednesday and see what happens.
PAD
I’ll join you in that, PAD. I co-run a woefully neglected web site that was launched as a nice, geeky “celebration of pop culture” as we label it, and we’ve got a comics section on our board that hasn’t been touched since 2005. I offer it up as a place to do the same thing.
The forum can be found at
http://www.light-sabre.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=1&sid=c70982f608e330e87ecc5878a6d607b4
PAD wrote:
Comic sales have actually done the opposite in the past five years. According to CBG the direct market sold $310.60 million in 2003. In 2008, it sold over $436.60 million.
http://www.cbgxtra.com/Default.aspx?tabid=695
The quote “Peter David says “not him” although Wikipedia begs to” was a joke, or, as Johanna had to explain to one of her readers, a J.O.K.E.
So I actually read the first article, and several of the comments, and all I can say is that it doesn’t seem very likely that arguing with the market or bickering with a valuable, fickle and gossip-prone segment of it (scans_daily is choc full of high schoolers) is a good way to do good business.
Missed the point entirely.
Be a man and take the blame where it is due
Grow up.
“The quote “Peter David says “not him” although Wikipedia begs to” was a joke, or, as Johanna had to explain to one of her readers, a J.O.K.E.
You know, it’s only a joke if you provide context to show it is such. A simple eye roll would’ve sufficed. This writer provided no context whatsoever. The fact that she has to point out the fact that it was a joke just goes to show how badly her attempt failed.
Rick Rottman: “Comic sales have actually done the opposite in the past five years. According to CBG the direct market sold $310.60 million in 2003. In 2008, it sold over $436.60 million. “
Rick, not to burst your bubble, but that’s overall sales dollars for comics, trade paperbacks, and magazines and not just comics. There are two problems with this as an argument.
1- You’re lumping magazine sales into the equation.
2- You’re citing dollar amounts and not sales circulation figures. Not a valid argument since the point is disproving or proving declining numbers of units sold. Sales numbers are down. Dollar amounts may be up, but that’s got nothing to do with the number of units sold.
If I sold 15 units at $1 each in 2003 I’ve made $15. If I only sell 10 units in 2008, but costs have driven the price up to $2; I sold $20 worth of goods in 2008. but less units sold for me means that I’ve made less actual after costs profit.
Same thing here.
Pete, I clawed through as much of that as I could. I got the gist.
I see what happened, and why, and I understand what’s going on. And I have one question, old friend.
Are you okay? You, Kathleen, and the kids? Because all this would be really painful to me. And you are, after all, my Evil Twin, so I imagine this is highly upsetting.
Look, you’ve got my email address. You wanna talk, drop me a line.
Illegitemus non carborundum, my friend.
Miles
Jerry Chandler, I’m not lumping magazines in with comics. That’s what Diamond does when they release sales numbers. Not that I imagine magazines make up a lot of the dollar amounts shown in these yearly figures.
PAD made a comment that sales have decreased since scans_daily showed up on the world wide Internet web. I inferred from this that he was referring to the amount of money that was being spent in funny book shops. The numbers seem to show that more money is being spent in comic book shops now then before scans_daily. This would seem to back up those that argue that sites such as scans_daily help promote the sale of comics.
“If I sold 15 units at $1 each in 2003 I’ve made $15. If I only sell 10 units in 2008, but costs have driven the price up to $2; I sold $20 worth of goods in 2008. but less units sold for me means that I’ve made less actual after costs profit.”
There were some numbers missing in the example (actual costs – you don’t make fifteen dollars on fifteen sales of a dollar each unless your costs were zero), but the point is made.
Something that might be of interest is how sales of trades did compared to sales of monthlies. If trades stayed steady or went up (actually I’m sure they did this year thanks to Watchmen but I’d like to see if there was a way to remove that spike from the argument) while monthlies went sown, then perhaps that’s a clue to the dealers and publishers that the trend is to trades.
In pro wrestling, the purpose of the TV show was solely to drive business to the house shows, where the real money is made. In Japan, manga are these huge phonebooks that very few people collect – it’s the collected editions that become the collectable. It is possible that the way to go is to make the trade the profit item, and guide the reader toward it. Reduce the cost of the monthly by putting it on cheaper paper (or release it digitally) and make the Trade the thing you want to keep. Right now the goal is to get people to buy both monthly and trade, and get a good price for both. A cheaper (but less sturdy, or completely virtual) monthly could potentially INCREASE sales (lower price makes things easier to sample), which would theoretically drive more business to the trade, which is (with a bit of work) where the greater profit is found. The monthly is where you get the majority of the costs out of the way – payments to creators and editors, print setup, etc. The trade becomes less expensive to create. If I can make an analogy to running a convention, the goal is to get the cost of the show out of the way with dealer booth sales – as soon as the first person pays to get in, you’re in the black.
It becomes easier to convince people to move to the trade because of the higher quality, and it becomes easier to read the monthly because of the lower price.
Easy for me to say, but occasionally things CAN be that easy, or at least point the way to a good (and more complete) idea.
Rick Rottman,
I didn’t mean that you personally were doing it to be deceptive or anything. I simply meant that by citing Diamond’s figures you were, since they do, lumping magazines into the final figures. That adds to the figures quite a bit since some of the magazines that sell through Diamond and are found in your average LCS retail for anywhere from $5 to $10 a pop.
And, yes, I believe that Peter was referring to actual units sold being down when he said that sales were down since he’s made this statements before and, because the discussion was a little more focused, been clearer about it. Besides that there’s the simple matter that final sales’ figures = $$$$ mean far less than units sold on a year by year bases. Costs go up for the publishers even as they raise prices on product. A book my show higher dollar sales now than five years ago, but if it’s selling fewer copies it’s making less profit for the company that produces it.
Sales are down from five years ago. Less actual product is being sold. The less product that sells the less the profitability margin is. It does reach a point where the numbers get so low that printing a certain title is no longer profitable or worth it to a major publisher.
PAD was of course, fully within his legal rights to rat out scans_daily. It was still a dìçk move. And his newfound reputation on the internet as “total dìçk Peter David” will do a lot worse things to his sales than scans_daily ever could. Good luck tripling your readership now!
Dan Lynam Says:
O, the maturity!
Good god if this is peoples main concern in life i envy you. PAD is not the destroyer of worlds and to the best of anyones knowledge he has not stolen any candy from any babies. He has not done anything that deserves this fuss.
Anyway as a long term fan who does not tend to buy many comics outside of Dark Tower recently i will now make an effort to pick up other issues you have done for two reasons – to have something good to read and to upset the trolls which will make me smile a little
“… And his newfound reputation on the internet as “total dìçk Peter David” …”
Newfound? You don’t read many net sites, do you.
Dan Lynam: PAD was of course, fully within his legal rights to rat out scans_daily. It was still a dìçk move.
You know, the unnoticed disconnect between these two ideas on the part of the poster says a lot. It says an awful lot.
Dan Lynam: PAD was of course, fully within his legal rights to rat out scans_daily. It was still a dìçk move.
Mike H: You know, the unnoticed disconnect between these two ideas on the part of the poster says a lot. It says an awful lot.
Couldn’t agree more. (With Mike, obviously.)
I think its really unfortunate that Scans_Daily got shut down. I read a lot of the X-Factor posts there, and many people had no idea that it was such a good book. I remember reading multiple comments about how they were going to start picking it up, because of its exposure there. I found a lot of books on the site that I’d never have looked twice at if they hadn’t been posted. I think it was great advertising.
Still, I wouldn’t argue about taking someone’s work down if they asked me to.
As my own research on The Comics Chronicles, also appearing on CBG, has been mentioned, a clarification. As seen here…
http://www.comichron.com/yearlycomicssales.html
…unit sales of comic books represented by Diamond’s Top 300 comics (equalling, in aggregate, the vast majority of comics sold), have gone up five of the last seven years.
2001 66.92 million copies
2002 73.72 million copies
2003 73.02 million copies
2004 74.14 million copies
2005 76.13 million copies
2006 81.85 million copies
2007 85.27 million copies
2008 81.34 million copies
I don’t believe 2003 was a real drop once the stuff under 300th place comes in. But 2008 was, indeed, off a few percent in units when it comes to comic books sold through Diamond — my own work and ICV2 finds that, and Diamond has confirmed it. I think we’ve got the general economy in there, plus a dearth of hits as compared to previous years.
Inflation is a factor in the aggregate dollar sales increases, but for several of these years, dollar sales increased by more than the rate of inflation. Until 2008, comics price inflation has been rather slow-going; the majors remained at the $2.99 point for a relatively long time. Average prices across time appear here:
http://blog.comichron.com/2008/11/average-retail-prices-for-comic-books.html
Magazines contribute very little to the overall Diamond picture — less than $10 million out of the $436.6 overall, I believe. Diamond includes magazines when it does its market shares out of tradition, and because there are magazines produced by comics publishers (like Mad) that go toward their market share.
Mike H: You know, the unnoticed disconnect between these two ideas on the part of the poster says a lot. It says an awful lot.
Only if you assume the law is always, unquestionably right. There are many ways to legally be a dìçk. Anyway, I find it interesting that, as part of PAD’s quest to triple his sales, he antagonizes thousands of his fans. The unnoticed disconnect between those two ideas says a lot.
I don’t expect anyone to have made it this far in the thread, but for those intrepid few, nice to meet you.
I read one story on Scans Daily (“In Pictopia” by Alan Moore and Don Simpson). Before The Beat made note of it, I was not aware of the story or of Scans Daily.
I was never a regular visitor of the site, as Live Journal has a horrible search engine for finding other interesting journals on the site. (My experience, your experience may differ.)
Half of any copyrighted material is too much. Five pages of a 22-page comicbook is too much. Were I creating a review blog, I would limit my use of graphics to the cover of the issue (to help consumers find it) and one page of illustration from the issue. If at all possible, the administrator or legal counsel of the site should send a letter to each publisher stating the site’s purpose, procedures on quoting copyrighted material, and asking for comments and permission under those posted guidelines. If the site is well-run, an emailed link for each review should be sent not only to the publisher, but to the creative individuals as well. This alerts them to your site, allows them to read what has been posted, and to either criticize the content, or publicize the review.
In other words, cover your ášš, and if you can, let people know just how nice your ášš is. It might get spanked, but like children, one learns quickly not to engage in behavior which results in spankings. (Of course, there are those who enjoy delivering spankings for No Good Reason, for which recourse is the metaphorical cricket bat to the back of the head, or keeping ones distance.)
A quick Google search found this, from the NYU School of Journalism. It is covered by the Creative Commons Attribution License, but go read.
http://journalism.nyu.edu/ethics/handbook/research-materials-and-copyright/
Or if you want it in comicbook form:
http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/
( Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.)
Torsten Adair TWAdair at yahoo dot com
Anyway, I find it interesting that, as part of PAD’s quest to triple his sales, he antagonizes thousands of his fans.
You haven’t actually read a word that’s been typed in this thread, have you?
There are many ways to legally be a dìçk.
If you want to talk about people being dìçkš, go find a mirror. With attitudes like this, it’s a wonder SD was the community many claim it to be, because far too many from that community are apparently staring in mirrors right now.
I’ve now spent way too much time reading through more than 500 posts, and I’m appalled at what passes for comics fandom these days. The sense of entitlement among those who have never created anything is astounding.
Copyright laws, like all intellectual property laws, are in place for a very good reason: to protect creators and to encourage them to create. By plundering their efforts with no respect for their rights of ownership, you in effect discourage their creativity. Why create something if you’re going to be forced to give it away for free? Believe it or not, writers and artists have to live and provide for their families, too. Their intellectual property is the way that they do that.
Many have said that the people posting to SD were true fans whose hearts were in the right place. That may well be so, but what they were doing was still categorically wrong. None of them had any right to post scans the way they did, and it’s doubtful that any of what they did would fall under the Fair Use Doctrine, which is typically reserved for use in legitimate reviews, scholarly works, teaching, etc.
The fact is, unless you’re the copyright holder or the creator, you have no rights in regards to things like comic books. You don’t get to decide how they should be distributed or promoted, you don’t get to decide how many pages you can post online, you don’t have the right to publish fan fiction, fan vids, or any other derivative work. Sorry, but that’s the law, a law more people would probably support were they to actually create something worthwhile themselves.
I’m also appalled to see people equating posting copyrighted material with civil disobedience. When Ghandi or Martin Luther King Jr. advocated civil disobedience to change unjust laws, they were using it as a tool to end serious human rights violations, discrimination, and racism. To equate their noble struggles with your “right” to steal comic books is obscene, and a severe disservice to the memory of these great men.
So SD is gone. Big deal. Perhaps if y’all loved comics as much as you claim to, you’d actually go out and buy your books instead of reading them online, thereby actually supporting the artists and characters you claim are so important to you.
Just a thought.
I know this is gonna be lost in the swamp of comments, but just in case…
Peter, I was a member of the scans_daily community, and I completely understand why you felt the need to report it. While so many of us simply wanted to share just enough to whet a person’s appetite and convince them to join us in reading the stories we loved, so many others simply posted near entire arcs with no thought to copyright law.
I hope that the next incarnation of the community will be more conscientious.
And in case you haven’t heard, here is Gail Simone’s view on the matter:
http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showpost.php?p=8491921&postcount=104
I’m sure you would agree with her on many, if not all of her points.
I wouldn’t exactly think of someone scanning in comics and putting them online as the robin hood of the fiction world, taking a story for free from someone and giving it to someone with no story.
I’m 31, I buy lots of comics and books each year, but I’m also familiar with the internet and its obvious that you can get lots of comics for free if you want to, which I don’t, cause I really don’t have time and I really like holding them to read them.
Is it a crime to copy someone’s work without their permission? Yes.
But thats not the real issue.
Should a questionable site be shut down cause someone is stupid enough to send the author of stolen work a link to that work.
God yes.
In fact ten sites should be shut down each time one person is stupid enough to expose one of them, just out of embarrasment.
Someone made a stupid daft silly mistake with their email and everyone who stands against the author here, stands with, and for, someone who clearly keeps their brain miles away from their body.
I like Peter David’s work alot, I read 30 of his books last year (which I bought), and since I have a good memory, look forward to reading them again when their hazy in my mind in 2020.
This scanning thing often makes people interesting in comics, so it may inspire people to like the medium,
but its not there to defend.
Conor.
P.S. Its off topic, but that last line of Londo Mollari’s was priceless.
All I can say is that a site which gave me pleasure and allowed me to discuss one of my favourite hobbies with like-minded people (something which is quite difficult where I currently am outside of the Internet) is gone. Is that such a big deal? I guess not, in the scheme of things. But it’s a small pleasure in my life that I don’t have any more, thanks at least partly in some small way to Mr. David it seems, and to misquote Doctor Who, the small pleasures are what make life worth living.
And as for the relationship with comics and decreasing sales, I doubt very much that I’d have become a passionate Fantastic Four fan and drop over AUS$150.00 in buying the complete Mark Waid / Mike Wierango run in hardback or even start collecting Marvel Comics without that site and the scans which introduced me to it. It introduced me to a lot of comics which I wouldn’t otherwise have shelled out for; you can hardly get the true impression of a comic from a few scans and a paragraph of description without buying the actual thing, I don’t care what anyone says.
I’ll also say that Mr. David’s unpleasant (if rather limited) experience of the site certainly wasn’t commonplace; I found the majority of posters to be intelligent, thoughtful and genuinely decent people, not the mob of savages who several here seem to be painting them as – and I can’t help but note that many don’t seem to have even visited the site at any point, which Mr. David has at least done (if a bit too briefly to gain an accurate impression of the site), which makes their oh-so-pious condemnation somewhat rich.
Did they bend the rules a bit there? Probably. Did they ultimately have it coming? I guess. Was Mr. David well within his rights to do what he did? Of course.
But I can’t bring myself to congratulate him.
P.S That doesn’t mean to say that he deserves some of the bile that’s been aimed at him here, though — for heaven’s sake, at the end of the day it WAS just a comics site. Others will rise in it’s place.
Is it likely that a small picoJava II embedded system would include an 8255 chip?
I’d like to apologize on behalf of all the S_D fans who had an immature reaction to this.
While I was very disappointed to see this community disappear, you should not be “blamed.” Even if the community had indeed been taken down by Marvel’s actions, it is completely fair for a creator who sees his works being posted in clear violation of fair use to report these infringements to his publisher. If I was in your position, I personally would have requested that specific posts be removed rather than report the entire site, but what you did was completely right.
I’m ashamed to see the large number of people who flame you without realizing this. Please remember that shallow brooks babble the loudest, and for every loudmouth flaming you, there is a quiet and mature S_D reader who has silently accepted this course of events.
P.S. I have a hard copy of I,Q, and I loved it before and I sill love it just as much.
I don’t particularly care if it was your fault S_D was shutdown.
what I do care about, is that you wanted it gone. You reported it.
That, I simply cannot abide. the worst kind of author is the one that goes against its public, against fandom.
I’m sure that sounds crazy to you but I can’t say I particularly care, it is my opinion after all. and I believe there were other steps to take before such action.
I’ve seen the question “why don’t you go out and buy them?” asked and my answer is: I’m not made of money. I have to choose carefully what to spend it in. I don’t want to buy something and then find out I didn’t like, I wanna know what it is about, I want a preview. and where I live, comics are a rare commodity, they’re hard to find. which makes them more expensive.
So my points is, my next buy and all future ones will not be Peter David’s comics. just like I don’t buy Anne Rice’s books.
You probably don’t care, since I’m just one person,I’m not even a blip on the radar but I thought you should know the effects of your actions.
I’m not speaking of behalf on anyone, just myself and I guess this comment will be lost in the shuffle but I had to say it
“the worst kind of author is the one that goes against its public, against fandom”
I think S_D was a great community that went just a hair to far, and drew the attention of those in authority. The community can rebuild and skirt the line a little closer and everyone (readers, creators and publishers) can benefit.
That said, if copyright violations hurt sales, then allowing said violations hurts fans (take note of the “if”). You may feel that those who disagree with your world view are wrong. But I suspect that you cannot prove that your world view is right. So why do you want to punish (withhold your purchase) someone who acted in a legal manner according to their personal beliefs? Because they aren’t obeying the unspoken rules of YOUR personal beliefs? How is that reasonable? Do you believe that everyone should be forced to think as you do? That they should be punished if they don’t?
Previews and reviews of each and every comic are easily found online. You can still test the waters and make your purchases accordingly.
what I don’t care about, is that you wanted only copyright violations gone, not the entire site as I so poorly assume.
Fixed that for ya. Do come again.
Okelay Says:
“I don’t particularly care if it was your fault S_D was shutdown.
what I do care about, is that you wanted it gone. You reported it.”
Where is it ever stated that PAD wanted the site “gone”. Yes, he reported it, because it was the MORAL and LEGAL thing to do. Even if you debate that and still feel PAD’s actions got the site shut down – which is still arguable at best – it is beyond reaching, to the point of dishonesty since he has stated repeatedly he did not want the site “gone” and unless you have some superpower, it is pretty arrogant and unfair to attribute motives to PAD that contradict what he has stated.
“That, I simply cannot abide.”
You obviously also “cannot abide” reason, logic or maturity.
“the worst kind of author is the one that goes against its public, against fandom.”
And the worst kind of comic fan is one who feels he is entitled to read stuff for free regardless of whether it is good for the creators, the publishers, the retailers and/or the industry as a whole.
Also, believe it or not, you and the rest of the SD extremists do not represent all of fandom. before this thread, I had never heard of Scans Daily – and I cover comic books for a living.
“I’m sure that sounds crazy to you but I can’t say I particularly care,”
It is a little crazy, with a heaping dose of self-entitlement and a dash of immaturity.
” it is my opinion after all.”
Yes, and you are entitled to your opinion, no matter how wrong, misguided or self-serving or full of teen-level angst it is. Not that you particularly care, of course.
“and I believe there were other steps to take before such action.”
There may be some truth to this. But only a little. And frankly, I don’t really particularly care.
“I’ve seen the question “why don’t you go out and buy them?” asked and my answer is: I’m not made of money.”
This is the perennial justification for all kinds of…what’s the word…oh, yeah, STEALING! Guess what, I’m not made of money either. Still doesn’t give me the right to cheat someone out of compensation for their labors simply because i might not want to pay for it.
“I have to choose carefully what to spend it in.”
So does everyone else.
” I don’t want to buy something and then find out I didn’t like,”
Do you realize how ridiculous this statement is? You want a guarantee of liking something before you buy it? Does that mean you never go to the movies or a Broadway play unless you get to see half of it first? If so, you are denying yourself a lot of entertainment experiences.
And really, you can’t determine from characters involved, creators attached, a synopsis in Previews AND regular reviews whether or not you’ll enjoy a book? You need a guarantee by reading half – or more – of an issue? Pretty lame argument. Not that you particularly care, of course.
“I wanna know what it is about, I want a preview.”
And you need to read half the book to know what it’s about? Boggles the mind.
” and where I live, comics are a rare commodity, they’re hard to find. which makes them more expensive.”
Which justifies stealing in your book. gotcha.
“So my points is, my next buy and all future ones will not be Peter David’s comics. just like I don’t buy Anne Rice’s books.”
It’s a shame you are denying yourself enjoyment based on a false premise – that PAD wanted SD shut down – and an even greater one that your sense of entitlement is this big.
“You probably don’t care, since I’m just one person,I’m not even a blip on the radar but I thought you should know the effects of your actions.”
But he didn’t..oh, never mind.
“I’m not speaking of behalf on anyone, just myself and I guess this comment will be lost in the shuffle but I had to say it”
Again, you are entitled to your opinion. Hopefully, sometime soon you will think with a clearer head and realize PAD did not get the site shut down, that there is a good chance SD will come back with rules that will prevent this situation from reoccurring and that, whatever the reason, there is no justifying theft, be it of intellectual property or anything else.
As a lapsed S_D user (I now have to clear about 600 unread and now unreadable posts out of my RSS reader), I entirely agree with PAD on every point. Yes, the original point of the community was awesome and hilarious; yes, the community had headed in entirely the wrong direction, rapidly falling towards the wholesale distribution of entire books for no charge. Which is a shame, because most of the time the community worked as free publicity.
For what it’s worth, last time I was actually active there in any form, they were imposing heavy restrictions against posting more than half of any book (judged as a percentage of pure story pages). They were aware that they were treading a fine fair-use line and did their level best to nip it in the bud. (In fact I remember a subsidiary community – “full scans daily” or somesuch – was set up where people could distribute entire comics, so as to reduce the risk to the primary community and provide an outlet for those who just couldn’t resist.) I don’t know if that has changed since. I suspect not, since most of the same mods seem to be involved.
I will take issue with one point of the original post: Photobucket is not “the site that enabled the posters to put up pictures on line.” It is one of the sites that offers this service, and it’s one of many. There was certainly no formal arrangement between SD and Photobucket, and indeed many users of the former regularly took the latter’s name in vain as they frequently went over their daily bandwidth limit. It may be the service used by the posters in question, but by no means the only one involved.
Sorry if any of this has been mentioned before (and I see the subject was at least touched on in Ms Simone’s forum post), but I’m at work right now and can’t read through 10 pages of comments…
I don’t particularly care if it was your fault S_D was shutdown.
what I do care about, is that you wanted it gone.
No. I didn’t. I had no reason to believe that the result of the pages being taken down would be anything other than the pages being taken down.
I know the way this is being spun: I showed up on LJ, people said nasty things to me, and I in a fit of pique decided to do everything within my power to shut them down.
Because in 25 years of internet participation, no one has ever said anything mean or insulting to me.
CBR is still there. Newsarama is still there. Comicon is still there. Lots of places where people have said venomous things about me are still there. For that matter, every mean, nasty, lying thing that anyone has said to me on MY OWN BOARD where I could delete them at will is still there, and the people who said them are free to continue posting. It doesn’t matter that every fragment of empirical evidence indicates that your assertions aren’t true. People continue to shout them from the rooftops. And credulous people believe them because…well, frankly, because it’s always easier to blame others.
That, I simply cannot abide. the worst kind of author is the one that goes against its public, against fandom.
I’m sure that sounds crazy to you
No. Crazy would be “Squirrels! Squirrels in my pants are controlling the world!” What you said is just kind of inane. Throughout history authors have said and done things that were ahead of the curve insofar as what the public was willing to tolerate. They were sanctioned. They were pilloried. They were ex-communicated. They were executed. Doesn’t make them the worst. Most of the time, what it made them was right.
I would counter that the worst type of fan is one who condemns and would seek revenge against an author who acted in a lawful and conscientious manner simply because the fan believed his fun was spoiled.
I’ve seen the question “why don’t you go out and buy them?” asked and my answer is: I’m not made of money. I have to choose carefully what to spend it in. I don’t want to buy something and then find out I didn’t like, I wanna know what it is about, I want a preview. and where I live, comics are a rare commodity,
Yet obviously you have computer access. Marvel posted a preview of “X-Factor #40.” You got what you wanted. Why was it not enough? You said it yourself: You don’t want to spend the money. Thank you for admitting that, at least. Most of those like you are declaring that it’s all about love of comics. At least you cop to the fact that you just want something for nothing. It’s a candor many aren’t displaying.
PAD
“You want a guarantee of liking something before you buy it? Does that mean you never go to the movies or a Broadway play unless you get to see half of it first?”
That’s pretty much what EVERYONE wants now. About how many minutes of unique Watchmen footage has been released in preview clips? A lot of films put the first reel up on the website. Pixar showed 50 minutes of “UP” at the NYCC.
About how many minutes of unique Watchmen footage has been released in preview clips?
All together? My rough estimate: Ten minutes. Out of a two hour and 45 minute film.
A lot of films put the first reel up on the website. Pixar showed 50 minutes of “UP” at the NYCC.
Yup. And the decision to do that was entirely that of the owners of the film. I guess ultimately that’s what a lot of people don’t understand.
From now on, I want to see previews of any Mets game I’m thinking of going to. I don’t want to risk spending money on a game where the players suck and the outcome isn’t to my liking.
PAD
“From now on, I want to see previews of any Mets game I’m thinking of going to. I don’t want to risk spending money on a game where the players suck and the outcome isn’t to my liking.”
Mission accomplished.
“No. I didn’t. I had no reason to believe that the result of the pages being taken down would be anything other than the pages being taken down.”
Before contacting Marvel to have their legal department take action, did you ask any of the moderators at scans_daily to remove the images from X-Factor #40?
Honestly, I have to say I’m skeptical that you had nothing to do with scans_daily being shut down. The site’s been around since 2003 and had been frequented by a variety of notable comic writers, but shuts down only days after you visited it? That sounds far too coincidental.
Before contacting Marvel to have their legal department take action, did you ask any of the moderators at scans_daily to remove the images from X-Factor #40?
Which part of “PAD is not the copyright holder, Marvel is” do you not understand?