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
• 
The only thing that bothers me about this situation is that Mr. David chose to go straight to Marvel rather than simply contact the owners of the journal. As someone who is familiar with internet administrators and moderators and has had to ask for content to be removed in the past, I can say that normally a simple, but strongly worded comment to the owners will convince them to remove the content in question. And had they refused, you would have been well within your rights to have the community shut down.
I can only assume that you were not familiar with this option and went to Marvel instead. Which is unfortunate as this whole mess could have been avoided.
Having read Gail Simone’s excellent suggestion for dealing with matters like this in the future, I hope scans_daily does return.
I got into comics around 10 years ago and 2 years later, my comic shop closed down. So for several years I had to make do with Waldenbooks and Borders comics. 2 years ago a new shop opened up in town and I’ve been venturing there every Wednesday, slowly building up my pull list in part thanks to the excellent recommendations submitted by Scans_Daily.
I’d also mention that Scans_Daily was a great source for anything to do with the comics and not just scans. It was through them that I saw The Black Cat’s hilarious “Batman and Sons” webcomic.
Anyone patting themselves on the back over the successful defeat of “those pirates”? You have no idea what you’re talking about.
Straw man argument — No one is patting themselves on the back here. No one is calling them “pirates.” In fact, I’m a little in disbelief about the whole thing.
From the sound of things, the posters on S_D were a real community, who loved their comics and wanted to introduce others to their favorite comics. Sounds like it was working, too. I’ve visited the NoScans LJ page that’s started up, and many of them seem articulate, funny, and smart.
Which is why this is frustrating to me. Sounds like a community I could enjoy myself, except that some of the membership went overboard with their scanning of comics and S_Ds admins didn’t reign them in. A poster over on CBR even admitted this was enough of an issue that the mods were already looking at rewriting the rules.
These were smart people, smart enough to know that copyright is taken seriously by the IP owners, and smart enough to know what might happen if they were ever called out on it. There’s no “slapping on the back” going on here that I can see. I feel sorry for the mods for not taking action more quickly. I feel badly for the other S_D members who didn’t violate copyright themselves. And, for one, I’m sorry PAD is caught in the middle.
But he did the right thing here, and if S_D’s membership is as honorable and smart as they claim to be, they will suck it up and rebuild and not screw around with the legal copyright holders this time.
Mr. David chose to go straight to Marvel because it wasn’t his right to go deal the SD. Marvel is the copyright owner.
Steve,
PAD is not the rights holder to X-Factor, so he contacted those rights holders–Marvel.
Katy said:
Or apparently we’ve all sunk so low on the internet that it’s perfectly acceptable to tell someone to DIE IN A FIRE simply because of something they wrote in a comic book that you didn’t agree with.
If people want to freak about this, maybe they would do well to talk to that original poster who started the storm?
That poster never in a million years would have had the guts to say something like that to PAD’s face, but for some reason the internet it’s business as usual.
S_D got shut down because of copyright violation. The CV was brought to the attention of Live Journal or whomever was responsible because someone couldn’t put a stop to the stupidity coming out of their fingertips.
Honestly people, if anything is to be learned from this it’s take a dámņëd minute to THINK about what you’re saying before you pop off.
Exactly. I said the same thing elsewhere and was told off for being “naive.” Sure it’s naive to expect people to mind their manners on the internet, but so what? I know a ton of people who are perfectly capable of doing so. Kali’s comments were inexcusable and were what drew Peter and Kathleen’s attention IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Don’t treat people the way you wouldn’t treat them offline, plain and simple.
Jerry Chandler: I’ve learned from personal experience that posting *anything* about my real life or occupation on the internet is just asking for trouble–Walter isn’t even my real name. But I could honestly care less if you or anyone else don’t believe me.
From what I’m seeing/hearing, a bunch of (predominantly) young people were having a really great party, but some of them got more than a bit loud and rowdy and the cops closed the party down. There’s now a whole lotta whining and bìŧçhìņg going on…
Posted by: Rob at February 28, 2009 04:32 PM
And you would be wrong. I love how people who never visited SD are judging its merits and legality.
——————-
Rob, I freely admitted I hadn’t been there, and make clear that what I’m basing reaction on is purely what I’ve seen posted here.
Some 70 posts later I’ll stick by what I said earlier. So maybe you should try judging on what people say and not on what you think you hear.
BTW, if you contend that s_d was doing nothing illegal, they should probably launch a ‘freedom of speech’ case against their illegal closure. They could probably ask CBLDF to fund it if they’re that sure they’re in the right.
Cheers.
I think it’s funny that PAD seems to think he gets special treatment because he’s PAD.
There are hundreds of “get your pirated comics here!” sites online. I’m sure PAD and Marvel will be going after “Google” next, ’cause dámņ.
But ScansDaily was not one of them. And it’s so cute that everyone climbing over themselves to defend PAD’s criticisms are screaming, “You guys were violating copyright!”
Well, no. There were specific rules in place which stopped that from happening. But whatever. It’s rare to see an author destroy advertising for his own work so spectacularly. Never mind.
Posted by: Walter at February 28, 2009 06:32 PM
Jerry Chandler: I’ve learned from personal experience that posting *anything* about my real life or occupation on the internet is just asking for trouble–Walter isn’t even my real name. But I could honestly care less if you or anyone else don’t believe me.
Ya know Walter, I think PAD probably knew the bit about “asking for trouble” long before this latest shitstorm blew into town… but he still has the çøjøņëš to hang in here.
If you – or anyone else – chooses to post anonymously, for whatever reason(s) that’s your right. But it does cost those who do choose that option some variable number of credibility points with the grown-ups in the audience.
If you can live with that, I know I can…
Cheers.
This is officially the longest I’ve seen something like this go without anyone calling anyone else a Nazi. You’re going to break Michael Godwin’s heart, you know.
/massive sarcasm quotes
Scans Daily did a whole lot of good by promoting Western comics to the large (and largely female) manga-reading community on LJ.
I myself have been buying manga since I was a teenager, but for a long time I was turned off by Western books because they all seemed like endless serials with revolving creative teams. I like my stories to have a finite plot arc, as well as consistent art and writing. I don’t care to study up on decades’ worth of character history just to understand what’s going on in the latest batch of DC and Marvel titles.
Browsing SD corrected a lot of my misconceptions about Western comics and showed me the world beyond superhero serials. I discovered (and bough trades of!) great Western comics like Ex Machina and Transmetropolitan as a result.
The SD community may be revived somewhere else, but if it’s not on LJ, then it won’t attract as many new fans. I’ve found that a lot of other comics boards are unfriendly to female manga readers like me. So congratulations, Mr. David. This petulant, childish little fit over criticism of your work has destroyed something that can’t be replaced.
Scans Daily did a whole lot of good by promoting Western comics to the large (and largely female) manga-reading community on LJ.
I myself have been buying manga since I was a teenager, but for a long time I was turned off by Western books because they all seemed like endless serials with revolving creative teams. I like my stories to have a finite plot arc, as well as consistent art and writing. I don’t care to study up on decades’ worth of character history just to understand what’s going on in the latest batch of DC and Marvel titles.
Browsing SD corrected a lot of my misconceptions about Western comics and showed me the world beyond superhero serials. I discovered (and bough trades of!) great Western comics like Ex Machina and Transmetropolitan as a result.
The SD community may be revived somewhere else, but if it’s not on LJ, then it won’t attract as many new fans. I’ve found that a lot of other comics boards are unfriendly to female manga readers like me. So congratulations, Mr. David. This petulant, childish little fit over criticism of your work has destroyed something that can’t be replaced.
Scans Daily did a whole lot of good by promoting Western comics to the large (and largely female) manga-reading community on LJ.
I myself have been buying manga since I was a teenager, but for a long time I was turned off by Western books because they all seemed like endless serials with revolving creative teams. I like my stories to have a finite plot arc, as well as consistent art and writing. I don’t care to study up on decades’ worth of character history just to understand what’s going on in the latest batch of DC and Marvel titles.
Browsing SD corrected a lot of my misconceptions about Western comics and showed me the world beyond superhero serials. I discovered (and bough trades of!) great Western comics like Ex Machina and Transmetropolitan as a result.
The SD community may be revived somewhere else, but if it’s not on LJ, then it won’t attract as many new fans. I’ve found that a lot of other comics boards are unfriendly to female manga readers like me. So congratulations, Mr. David. This petulant, childish little fit over criticism of your work has destroyed something that can’t be replaced.
Jerry Chandler: I’ve learned from personal experience that posting *anything* about my real life or occupation on the internet is just asking for trouble–Walter isn’t even my real name. But I could honestly care less if you or anyone else don’t believe me.
That’s good. Because I doubt that anyone believes you own a comic book shop. Which makes your post a complete waste of your time since the object was to make PAD feel that he was being punished.
Wow, is this setting the record for the most responses in the shortest amount of time?
PAD did nothing wrong. It’s unfortunate that people have lost a great community. There should be some way of fixing the problems and bringing it back–PAD is not the guy who can do it, though, so the vitriol seems misplaced and counterproductive.
Being PAD doesn’t give him an automatic level of respect – being human does. Or apparently we’ve all sunk so low on the internet that it’s perfectly acceptable to tell someone to DIE IN A FIRE simply because of something they wrote in a comic book that you didn’t agree with.
That poster never in a million years would have had the guts to say something like that to PAD’s face, but for some reason the internet it’s business as usual.
My point was that Peter gets no special deference because he’s PAD. Remember, they didn’t come to his blog, they didn’t seek him out. He wasn’t an invited guest. He came in to their community entirely on his own. Think about it for a moment, if someone walks into the place you normally hang out and says or does something disagreeable, are you telling me that you wouldn’t take offense to that?
It’s one thing if they sought out Peter’s attention, like going to autograph signing, inviting him for an interview, coming to his blog, or some such. But they didn’t. By all accounts, he went there and stuck his nose into the middle of things, and I’m saying that he shouldn’t expect people to treat him like anything other than what he was at that point: some rude guy who barged into a conversation that he previously wasn’t a part of. Why should he be treated as anything other than that?
I loved what I saw on Scans_Daily, but I wasn’t a regular. I typically just got linked to bits of silliness like this:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/deekblues/goshdarn.jpg
I’ll miss the place if it’s really gone.
Slick, whether or not he was invited is irrelevant. Livejournals are public forums, everyone is invited.
You’re also making it sound like PAD did something wrong once he got there. He didn’t. All PAD did was tell Marvel that someone had posted more of a comic than what is allowed by fair use laws. That’s completely reasonable.
Marvel didn’t shut down Scans Daily. If you don’t like that Scans Daily was shut down, stop wasting your time here and go talk to either LiveJournal or Photobucket. They’re the ones who were actually involved in shutting SD down.
Photobucket did not do this.
LJ did not come to this (or any) conclusion themselves.
You have made the short trip from class clown to hall monitor.
Funny how most of the complaints are trying to gloss over the original offense by painting PAD as a “Petulant Child” and trying to paint this as him being upset over criticism. I’m certain this little rationale was cooked up by the more “mature” people who’re making SD look bad in retrospect.
And before anyone else starts getting into the useless arguments over what constitutes “copyright” and that SD had “meaasures in place” to combat it, be reminded that what SD may have considered “fair” is probably NOT what the creators of the source material would have considered “fair”.
Most independant comics have, in their legal blurbs, specifically-worded instructions and limits as to what material can be used for “review” purposes. Other companies may put it on thier websites if they engage in digital distribution. So, for the sake of argument, if a specific policy is “No more than 3 pages may be reproduced, and then only for the purposes of review”, then the “We never posted more than half an issue” argument wouldn’t fly in ANY court of law if it went that far. Also, not contacting a specific company to find out what their policy on such “reviews” are doesn’t save you from recriminations if they decide to come after you for posting more than you should have. (The old “Ignorance of the law is no excuse” trap)
By posting that much of a comic, SD was rolling the dice on someone complaining. Just because it came up “craps” now is no reason for a witch hunt to blame anyone but the original posters of the material. Doesn’t matter to some companies if it was “yanked” by the mods, the damage was done and they won’t take the chance on it happening again. Plain and simple fact is, if you want to play in the sandbox with someone else’s toys, make sure you know the owner’s rules, don’t assume the ones you made up to cover yourself will be sufficient.
I’m sure the site had its merits and its decent members doing what they could to benefit the “community”. However it’s the most vocal, snarky people who are doing the most harm to SD’s reputation now. Threats of “not buying your stuff” to ascribing nefarious motives on PAD’s behalf, to cheap attempts at guilt (“It was because of SD that I even bought your stuff to begin with!”) come off as whining children that do more harm to the image of comics fans than any imagined “harm” that the shutdown of SD has done to the community.
Guthrie, if you don’t think LiveJournal is responsible for this, then who do you think is? It’s not Marvel, all the scans PAD objected to were taken down by Photobucket before Marvel had a chance to do anything.
So if Marvel didn’t do anything and you don’t think LiveJournal is responsible, then who did you think did this?
Was scans_daily legally in violation of copyright claims?
Yes, there were posts that violated it.
Was it PAD’s fault?
He was in the right legally, even if he was the one to explicitly get it down he’s still right. However, plenty of other writers and people professionally involved in comics lurked and posted there. I believe Warren Ellis posted himself a lesser known one just to drum up appeal. He can be right in the copyright issue, the members there can still feel a little betrayed that it would be in this way when so many other members of his profession handled their complaints directly to the community. Many of the people are coming here to argue because we see potential good in the community if people worked with its members.
It’s not a pirating site. Nobody who goes there is expecting an online copy of their favorite stories so they don’t have to buy it. They went to see about old issues, reviews, to pique interest and share opinions in a way that is like all internet forums (but largely less vitrolic than the times I went to the Newsarama board). And it showed plenty of other illegal material, such as fan art of characters, webcomics, discussion links and a host of other things that would make copyright legalists’ eyes cross.
I think most of us are here not to say “aw come on man be cool about it” but to present our side in a respectful manner. I discovered a lot of back issues that I later bought in used bins due to scans_daily, and although the creators never got a cent I did pay for them. One of them was PAD’s first run of X-Factor, because someone posted the conversation between Samson and Quicksilver. And I was one of the many there who loved Young Justice and bought it until its run ended.
The only thing I can say to Mr. David is your intervention did have an impact, whether or not it was direct. Look at all the comments here and tell us that nobody was affected.
This thread leads me to ask
Has anyone here had any experience with Marvel’s Digital comics? I ask this because my comic dollar doesn’t go as far as it once did. IF a monthly or yearly Subscription fee would grant me acess to most of the ‘historic’ marvel comics and the the majority of the must read new titles I’m game. But if the MDC thing is just the Joe and Brian show I’ll pass.
Anyone?
I’m sure the site had its merits and its decent members doing what they could to benefit the “community”. However it’s the most vocal, snarky people who are doing the most harm to SD’s reputation now.
True. Problem is, us more reasonable members can’t really do anything about them. All we can really do is hope that we aren’t all going to be judged by the standards of the nutcases. They’re pretty much going to be nutcases whatever you say, unfortunetly. Again, on behalf of the sane majority, i’m very sorry about all this, and I don’t have any blame for PAD.
Sure is butthurt ITT.
Dear PAD,
I’m a huge fan. I met you at NYCC this year and really enjoyed talking to you. My love of your work (especially Young Justice) has not changed. And I would like to apologize for the less mature members of Scans_daily to whom you’ve talked. I also am a member of Scans_daily. It’s the site that told me about Young Justice. I’d just finished the first trade of Teen Titans, and in my search for more Bart Allen, I learned that he was dead. Instead of reading the current stories, I read as much Young Justice as I could get my hands on. Most of that was on Scans_daily, at least at first.
I honestly don’t go to the site that often anymore. I have friends that read comics offline now, and we’ll lend each other things. I also get free comics legally, at the library. I do owe a lot to scans_daily, though, and the site will be missed. I do not blame you for the site’s closure. If anything, I’m happy because before all this ridiculousness, I didn’t know you had a blog. And now I can follow it! So…silver lining?
Just wanted to add my voice to the others from scans_daily who love your work and the community.
I visit thirty odd comic blogs a day (some of them twice) and frequently check in at CBR and Newsarama. I have never once been to Scans Daily so someone’s claim to have not visited much or ever has validity in my eyes.
Although, Mister David, maybe you should take all these ignorant accusations as a compliment. These misguided people all think of you are so great and powerful that you and you alone have the power to shut down whole web sites unaided. I’d be in awe of any man who really could do šhìŧ like that…
Slick, I gotta ask you, how exactly was he not part of the conversation when he was the *subject* of the conversation?
Hëll, I’ll admit it: I download music for free when I can, and the times I went to s_d to read a comic, I’ve never gone out and bought it(though nearly everyone else on here who has commented has seemed to).
I would tend to read comics there that I would never buy in the first place, just to see what was going on in that comic universe.
Places that host free scans of comics make it so you don’t have to John Byrne steal stuff at the LCS.
All this being said, I’d forgotten about s_d lately and have preferred reading peoples takes on comics on other sites without pages posted.
I do understand the loss of the community people are feeling(and that is the real shame), but as many people have mentioned, give it a little time and something will take it’s place,it’s the internet for chrissakes.
Posted by Rob
As I said, I don’t do IP but if memory serves me correctly one of the key questions in fair use cases was if the use destroyed or damaged the marketability of creation.
A little google-fu gives me this, an excerpt from a page posted by the US Copyright Office:
Note that your definition is the last of four points listed, and is immediately preceded by one regarding how much of the original is used.
It continues:
So, whether or not it impairs the marketability, posting half is very likely a violation anyway.
Posted by Steve
The only thing that bothers me about this situation is that Mr. David chose to go straight to Marvel rather than simply contact the owners of the journal.
Again, what part of “It’s Marvel’s responibility under the law to deal with violations of Marvel’s copyrights, not PAD’s” is too difficult for people to comprehend?
Posted by Walter
Jerry Chandler: I’ve learned from personal experience that posting *anything* about my real life or occupation on the internet is just asking for trouble–Walter isn’t even my real name.
Yeah – as you and the others sure proved to PAD, didn’t you?
Note submission of this post with my real name … and the several hundred reviews on Amazon that i signed with my full name … and any number of posts here and there signed “fairportfan”, in which i mention my real name whenever it seems appropriate, not to mention my e-mail address.
People who hide under – i mean, “behind” – rocks and snipe anonymously at people who *do* use their real names or easily verifiable handles are, by definition, lame cowards.
Have a nice life.
Somewhere else.
I’m going to repeat the story I’ve told a couple of times now, here, b/c I think it’s illustrative:
I am a female comics fan with a little brother who I’m trying to convert. He’s a big fan of the cartoons and we were watching “Wolverine and the X-Men” yesterday (legally obtained through DirectTV!) when he brought up the issue of comic book deaths. I said that the best treatment of that I’d ever read was in X-Factor; that Siryn’s attitude towards her father’s death had stuck with me ever since I’d read it, as one of the best extrapolation from ground rules that I’d ever seen. He laughed; I thought, “Thank God. He’s finally old enough for this book. I’m going to go get him the trades on Monday.”
Needless to say, the only reason I knew about X-Factor? Scans_daily. The only reason I knew what a comic book death was in the first place? Scans_daily. The only reason I knew how astonishing and awesome that character choice was? Scans_daily.
I didn’t care about comics even a little before scans_daily, and yours was one of the first comics it hooked me on. I’m sorry it’s gone, and I’m sorry you don’t understand its value.
Posted by BoosterBeetle
Jamie, the site hosts less than half of any given comic, it is not a torrent site where entire issues are available to download.
Uh huh. So stealing all of my bank account is wrong, but just stealing half of is okay. Right.
{later post}
Oh, no denying that’s the issue, plain and simple, but the fact is the site has been doing the same thing for five years, with numerous industry insiders operating in the ‘know’ and even being members.
…and “everybody does it” is no more a valid argument here than it was when Repubicans tried to excuse Nixon for Watergate by pointing out that LBJ had done stuff at least as raw (if not quite so illegal) in his career, or the Democrats tried to excuse Clinton’s (rather more minor) exploita by citing the Republicans who had dome the same or worse.
Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time, son.
Posted by Ken Lowery
The catalyst was that the inevitable caught up with S_D. It’s not about never engaging about piracy, it’s about not sulking like kids when you’re caught for doing it. The tone of most S_Ders is something like “We’re the unsung heroes of the comics internet,” or even more ridiculous, “well this was the ONLY PLACE ON EARTH to learn about new comics, so I guess I’ll spend less now…”
So again: grow up, kids.
Yup – get too blatant and too nonchalant, and someone will knock you off.
Consider Pirate Bay.
Yes (in response to at least one previous post), i’ve downloaded music. But i never tried to pass myself off as “supporting the music industry” while i did it.
Posted by Kevin O’Shea
As someone who has had internet denizens turn on him at the drop of a hat before (though not NEARLY to this extent)? I sympathize.
This is one show of support.
This is, too.
Posted by Anna
Well, it seems like scans_daily is not going to stay down in any case. There’s a new scans_daily up at Insanejournal.com, already active.
And now that you’ve outed it in this column, how long will it stay there? Let’s face it – even back before they began posting massive amounts of scans of current comics, they were probably in violation of “fair use” (i say “probably” because i was never aware of the site before this, and so have no personal knowledge, but i know the average internet poster’s idea of “fair use”) but nobody really worried about it.
Posted by Mike Harris
Mr. David, congratulations on adding a very large dollop of ill will to your “whuffie” on the Internet. Were this the first action you’ve taken to engender such a large amount of ill will, I’d say it would have little effect on your career or sales. However, it’s far from the first. I will look forward to the schadenfreude accompanying your devolution into has-been.
Dork
Posted by Richard
Honestly, Scans_Daily was a review community. Less than half of a comic? Does qualify for fair use.
Bull. Under current copyright law (and let’s not get into my opinion of that), any at all may well not be “fair use”.
Let’s just say that there are (and have been) a lot of myths about copright in general and “fair use” in particular floating around fandom.
Posted by Jennifer
Go DIAF and take all your šhìŧŧÿ comics with you.
Ah, it’s sonice to see cogent, relevant, well-reasoned and respectful discussion on the Internet.
Of course, you’ll never see this, will you, since you’re just a drive-by who’s never read this site or posted here before, here to attack PAD because of something he didn’t actually do.
Dorkette.
Posted by Peter Block
As for whether the current copyright law is right or not, that’s another story and one I think many have a problem with. Why can there be a scenario where someone can go into a Kinkos and copy 10 pages out of “Tigerheart,” where Kinkos is not be liable for copyright infringement when someone else can go to scans daily, post 10 pages from X-Factor, and scans daily IS liable.
Actually, Kinko’s is (or could be) liable – which is why they have a company policy against allowing anyone to do so. (Whether it’s well-enforced or even enforced at all is another question.)
Some years back, when i didn’t have a scanner and was trying to work up some fliers/mailers for my brother, i went to Kinko’s with his business card to get a scan of the logo, and i practically had to sign a form attesting that i had a right to do in blood.
Posted by John HefnerM/b>
Jennifer, you’re not helping.
I doubt she wants to be helpful – but it’s a wonderful opportunity to kick a man who (in her perception) is down, and look like a heroine to other clueless dorks and dorkettes for doing it.
Posted by Chris Scott at February 28, 2009 03:51 PM
Actually, as far as I can tell, this isn’t the case. Photobucket deleted the scans themselves, identifying them as copyright infringment, as PAD says, but there’s been no mention (either by PAD or anyone else) of Photobucket then themselves contacting Livejournal. Photobucket was responsible for taking down those particular scans alone.
And you don’t think, perhaps, that LiveJournal, percieving (rightly or wrongly) that Photobucket’s action indicated that someone was unhappy about the copyright issue, and that, perhaps, it was time to shut down a site that clearly violated LJ’s policies and Terms of Service?
Posted by Peter Block
Kinkos is an American Business that makes, among other things, copies. They have various stores set up across the nation where there are a bunch of copy machines set up for making copies. They also do copies for various businesses. As for your analogy, neither Kinkos nor Live Journal have signs up stating that people should copy and distribute copyrighted material.
In fact, both have signs (or, at least, ToS) that say not to.
Posted by Alan Coil
It’s amazing how many people have stopped in to comment on copyright law that have never examined copyright law.
Pobably the same ones who believe that publishing fan fiction based on copyrighted/trademarked material is okay as long as you include a disclaimer saying you don’t mean to hurt anyone and you’re not making a profit.
Posted by Chris Scott at February 28, 2009 04:02 PM
Ta for the info on Kinkos. Yes, Livejournal have no such signs…
Inviting people to post copyright content, you mean (just to keep things clear).
In fact, LJ has just the opposite – Section XIV, paragraph 3 of LJ Terms of Service says:
Posted by Cameron
SD and the mods (and I’ve spoken to all three) did not kill itself.
LJ killed it.
I dunno – if you’re doing something illegal, and you load a shotgun, point it at your own head, and then dare someone else to pull the trigger to keep you from doing it, that pretty well qualifies as suicide in my book.
Posted by Rob
And you would be wrong. I love how people who never visited SD are judging its merits and legality.
I don’t need to have visited the site to understand what was going on, since it’s what goes on at any number of other sites, and the loud teenage party/cops shutting it down analogy is valid.
And pretty much all i see (though not all types are in any one post) here from those trying to defend the site are self-justifying sophistry, whining and bìŧçhìņg and fourth-grade invective.
Posted by taryntee
That being said, in fairness, going to Marvel without first trying to find resolution with the moderators of the community was fairly…well…wanky.
What part of “Marvel, who hold the copyrights, was the one who had the right and duty to take action, not Peter” is too difficult for you to understand? PAD has already said, more than once in this thread, that if the material in question had been Fallen Angel, on which he holds the copyright, he would have taken direct action.
Knowing what i do about PAD, he might well have first gone to the moderators and pointed it out and asked for removal, before he did anything else.
Posted by Slick
As someone who tended to frequent scans_daily, the community did have a lot of positive and negative aspects, and attempting to paint it one way, in either direction, is silly.
Which, in fact, i haven’t seen PAD doing here … but i sure see a number of people on the *other* side of the fence doing so.
As for people being rude? It’s the internet. That happens. But if you thought that being Peter A. David gave you an automatic level of respect in a place like scans_daily… man were you wrong. I didn’t get a chance to read the exchange you had there, but I can tell you that if you don’t have a relationship with the people there, anything remotely negative you say will be returned at least a dozen times over.
Wait a minute – you think that PAD desn’t know that, and probably endure a lot worse than what he saw there right here on his own site (not to mention John Byrne’s or Erik Larsen’s)? Sounds like you are doing what you’ve accused him of, and assuming you know all about what he thinks and what goes on here.
Posted by Jerry Chandler
Really, Walter? What’s the name of the shop. Only fair of you to say. Peter has the guts to put his name behind anything he says or does so why can’t you do the same?
Maybe he’s afraid that people who see this post will decide not to buy anything at all there, because the owner sounds like such a jerk?
Jason,
Scans_daily had moderated membership. It wasn’t open for anyone to join, but non-members could view the community, except for any posts that contained adult content. I think they could comment, but I’m not sure on that.
Regardless, if I’m talking to someone while standing in a park, other people are free to walk and stand where they choose, but it doesn’t mean I appreciate it when someone I wasn’t talking to jumps into the conversation.
@Mike Weber And you don’t think, perhaps, that LiveJournal, percieving (rightly or wrongly) that Photobucket’s action indicated that someone was unhappy about the copyright issue, and that, perhaps, it was time to shut down a site that clearly violated LJ’s policies and Terms of Service?
It’s certainly a possibility. The problem as I see it is that LJ is a large site – one particular post with removed, copyrighted material probably isn’t going to come to their notice in and of itself. It makes sense as a response to Photobucket’s action, but only if they knew about the action, which doesn’t seem to me to be an automatic assumption. But yes, certainly it’s a possibility. I’m having trouble thinking of alternative methods LJ discovered the situation, at least.
Inviting people to post copyright content, you mean (just to keep things clear).
Yes, precisely. Thanks for the elaboration. And while I was unaware of the particular section LJ has on this, it’d be pretty silly to think they didn’t have something like that on the books.
Michael,
It’s hard to answer your question without having seen the posts themselves, but as far as I can piece together from what PAD has posted here, Peter wasn’t the subject of discussion. An issue of X-Factor (that Peter happened to work on) was the actual subject of discussion. They weren’t talking about the writer, they were talking about some aspect of the comic in and of itself.
Michael,
It’s hard to answer your question without having seen the posts themselves, but as far as I can piece together from what PAD has posted here, Peter wasn’t the subject of discussion. An issue of X-Factor (that Peter happened to work on) was the actual subject of discussion. They weren’t talking about the writer, they were talking about some aspect of the comic in and of itself.
Jamal wrote:
> UGH! My favorite writer got my favorite
> community on live journal shut down.. who
> should I be mad at? HELP!
The LiveJournal Abuse Team are the ones at whom you should be angry. Nobody has as yet noted their role in this mess.
Both corrupt and incompetent, this is an example of something they promised they would no longer do.
After the “/S/t/r/i/k/e/t/h/r/o/u/g/h/ /’/0/7/” fiasco a public promise was made that no longer would entire journals or communities be taken down for alleged copyright violations but instead the relevant individual entries. That was violated here, and as was done before, on a Friday night when anyone with any authority wouldn’t be back in the San Francisco offices until Monday morning, Pacific time.
The LJ Abuse Team is full of non-lawyers who nevertheless attempt to practice law, self-styled art critics who analyse fan art for child pørņ (these are overlapping sets), and cronyists who routinely let their personal friends violate rules relating to Internet bullying. Much of the real difficulty in this incident lies with the Team.
There is a slim possibility that after Monday morning or later the scans_daily community could be restored if the people in charge of the company, the ones above the Abuse Team in the company heirarchy, can be convinced that the community will make an effort to police itself with regard to limiting all scans to Fair Use and past examples exceeding Fair Use are removed or altered, but it’s just that, slim, not something anyone can count upon.
And Mr. David, I’m sorry that those with an enlarged and inflamed sense of entitlement plus an inadequate understanding of how LJ Abuse functions have been so rude to you and Mrs. David.
Actually they’d reached the point in talking about the issue where they were blaming PAD for it and had, I’ll admit, unkind things to say to him.
Um, no, Slick, I think when someone says “DIAF PETER DAVID!!!1!!one!!”, you’re no longer talking about any “aspect of the comic”, you’re talking about the writer.
as someone who had once planned on becoming a comic book artist, i understand the issues of copyright and ownership. i was in the height of collecting when the big mess with Marvel and DC went on back in the early 90s – the result being Image, Top Cow, and the others who broke away from the “big” publishers to do their own thing. the bottom line is, if they hadn’t been breaking the terms of service in the first place, there wouldn’t have been a problem. (or they could have at least gone about things in a much quieter, less obvious manner) i’m no innocent, i’ve grabbed the occasional TV show or movie here and there, but this sounds like it was something blatantly out there with no excuses. the trick of doing something that goes against rules is this – if you aren’t willing to do the time, don’t do the crime. i agree with what i’ve said a few times over in earlier comments – grow up y’all, it’s just a website, you can make another one, this time keep it clean.
ooh! was that a cat singing the Firefly theme? rock on i gotta see this!
I didn’t care about comics even a little before scans_daily, and yours was one of the first comics it hooked me on. I’m sorry it’s gone, and I’m sorry you don’t understand its value.
It’s not a matter of its value, or even whether I understand it.
There are plenty of reasons to excuse something that is, at its core, against the law. You can rationalize it all you want. You can explain good things that could come from it. I’m sure that the guy who last year broke into my van and stole my GPS would be able to tell you how wonderful it was that he was able to sell it and buy medicine for his child (or whatever he bought with it.) I certainly know the guy who wanted to produce a Harry Potter reference volume using J.K. Rowling’s work could go on at length about how much he was benefiting the fans of Rowling’s work. Didn’t exactly fly with Rowling or the judge.
There’s always benefits to someone from theft. But theft remains theft, whether people try to enumerate the benefits or not. As a general rule of thumb, the way you tell the difference between right and wrong is that when it’s wrong, you have to make excuses for it.
but as far as I can piece together from what PAD has posted here, Peter wasn’t the subject of discussion. An issue of X-Factor (that Peter happened to work on) was the actual subject of discussion. They weren’t talking about the writer, they were talking about some aspect of the comic in and of itself.
And I took no issue with those postings. On the other hand, postings that said, “FÙÇK YOU, PETER DAVID! DIE IN A FIRE!”? Not exactly sticking to the topic of the comic.
PAD
Slick,
If you’re standing in a park and someone walks up and notices that you’re wearing the shirt that was stolen out of his car, yeah, he has a right to start talking to you.
The whole “invited” thing is a straw man argument. The pages were scanned, they were posted for everyone to see, and one of those people who saw them happened to be PAD. He had as much right to be there as anyone else and he certainly had a right to point out something that wasn’t appropriate.
This whole argument isn’t about PAD. Some people lost a site they lost and they want to get some grief out. I get that. So even though it’s unfair that you’re pointing the blame at PAD, I understand that you’re upset and need to blow off some steam.
You’ve run X-Factor into the ground, She-Hulk had a weak ending, even for you, and Fallen Angel was only good for the first 12 issues.
Sorry but true.
You’ve run X-Factor into the ground, She-Hulk had a weak ending, even for you, and Fallen Angel was only good for the first 12 issues.
Sorry but true.
I’ve never heard of Scans Daily till just now. I’m not a huge comic fan. I’m not a R/L friend of Peter David. I have read some of his work. I have seen him in panels at cons. He probably would never recognize me. I do check in on his and Kathleen’s blogs.
Creators have the right to protect their creations. Period. Many of the posters here are chewing on him for just protecting his rights. I suspect that more than a few were titillated by the pseudo “bootleg” quality of the site…
IMHO, some people are just looking for a place to vent… venting to and about Peter on this site is not productive. Take it to the sources and give your words some power and some intelligence, because frankly, you sound like my 5th graders when there is a change in their day – they just can’t handle it.
Jean: Wiki page is fixed. Peter. Best to you and Kathleen.
Luigi Novi: Well, it was vandalized at least once after you posted here, Jean, for a total of three times today. I’m not sure if your post was meant literally or as an ironic, sarcastic indication that you were the one who did this, but in any event, the article is protected now from new and unregistered users. Best to you too. 🙂
mike webber:So, whether or not it impairs the marketability, posting half is very likely a violation anyway.
Regulations are one thing, case law that determines how those regulations are interpreted is another. And I’m sure that the case law shows that impact on marketability is a key factor in determining fair use.
Just to chime in. The closing of Scans_Daily has probably closed the second biggest marketing resource Marvel (and DC and Image and …) had. I’m not the world’s biggest comics fan. But without Scans_Daily, my comics collection would be restricted to Absolute Sandman and Calvin and Hobbes and not include e.g. Supergirl: Many Happy Returns, or Young Justice: A League of Their Own (and handfuls of the issues as far too little of those series have been released as trades).
The reason it was better marketing than the official previews is fourfold. Firstly the comics came to me – I didn’t have to go to [publisher’s website] and select the preview. It would come to my flist on a single click. Secondly it was what people had found cool – not the first few pages. If there was a post on scans_daily, I knew someone had cared enough to put it there. Whereas I don’t know what the editors of some of both DC and Marvel are on. The third is that it was also giving me retrospectives – both the history of a character (which in many cases matters) and titles that had been good but were published five or more years ago (that DC and Marvel would be unlikely to pimp). Finally, unlike Wizard, internal adverts, and most other methods, it attracted people who didn’t start as comics fans.
In short, the biggest problem to sales is not that people will read your stuff without paying for it. Let alone read part of your stuff without paying for it and not care enough to buy the rest. It’s that the vast majority of the population doesn’t fûçkìņg care about what they think is a nearly obselete and irrelevant medium that takes forever to tell a story, and where the special effects have been overtaken by CGI. Your biggest problem is a mix of ignorance and apathy.
And for PAD: Good luck trebling the sales of X-Factor. You’re going to need it given that you’ve just pìššëd øff probably four figures worth of Young Justice fans (which is probably more than you knew still existed). Yes, Scans_Daily was overenthusiastic and often obnoxious. And legally questionable. But attacking it directly is the equivalent of saying “This is my ball. And I’m not playing.” When you are dependent on the other players for your bread and butter.
(There are at least some other authors who got this – and both Gail Simone and Warren Ellis had been semi-regular commenters for a while, and a number of others have shown up. Scans_Daily was not a secret – and the number of people who checked it far exceeds the members).
Rob, I’m not sure of that at all.
Can you site some cases showing examples of that? Can you site cases where it was ruled that half of the thing being sampled was still fair use?
I’ve never looked at a case involving comics, but every case I have looked at for other media showed much less than half being considered a violation of fair use.
What I’m getting from you here, Mr. David, is that you don’t know what it was worth and you don’t understand what you broke.
I’m not expecting you to change or anything, that would be silly.
But please know you have severely and negatively impacted my life and my work here. Not only was s_d the most consistently intelligent (and deep) comic book discussion site that I’d ever seen, but it was one of the few places where indy creators could appear, and compete, side-by-side with Marvel and DC. Now it’s gone. It’s very unlikely that it will be replaced; it certainly won’t be as good because we can’t use LJ any more.
You have (casually and unknowingly, I’m sure) hurt hundreds of creators and serious students of comics. Good job. Thanks for nothing.
Pardon me if, in skipping ahead to reply after reading a particular post, I’m brining up points that others have mentioned in the interim.
liliaeth, I’m sorry to say, but your logic isn’t tracking.
If it weren’t because of Scans_daily, I never would have found out about Friendly Neigborhood Spider-Man
Seriously? A promotional push from Marvel, including launching it with a ginormous crossover and a ton of variant covers didn’t do the trick? PAD himself mentioning it here kept you in the dark? It took a site like Scans_daily for you to be aware that one of the largest comics publishers in the country was launching a new title featuring their flagship character?
I started buying your version of She-Hulk, because scans-daily showed me how much better your issues were than Dan Slott’s .
Oddly enough, I was able to do the same thing by flipping through PAD’s first issue at the store. I didn’t need the assistance of a web site I’d never heard of until today.
–Daryl