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
• 
Gail Simone and Warren Ellis get it too, and good for them because thanks to Scans Daily, titles I was never aware of from both of them ARE on my pull list. The reason PAD will no longer be there isn’t because his actions let to the removal of that site, but because he’s clearly shown that he doesn’t get it.
And if anyone wanted proof that people like this aren’t reading the thread but instead just sniping and running, here’s the proof.
PAD
So do I, but no one seems to be interested in that. They’re far too interested in vilifying me for an outcome that I did not foresee, had no control over and–by the way–still have no proof that I or Marvel had anything to do with.
Seriously. This seems the crux of the issue to me too. I miss the site because I liked talking about comics there, and want that back without the copyright violations. I’m sad that conversations got erased that I enjoyed. I miss things scans that were posted there too that I could look up, but don’t feel like I have any particular right to them.
I’m upset too. S_D was one of the main places I went to to discuss comics.
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
instead of being an unproductive member of the internet
yet he’s the one actually, you know, producing stuff for you to steal, or review, or recommend, or hate, or enjoy…without old unproductive Peter David and the other actual talents out there, you have nothing. Small wonder you’re so bitter.
I’ll be honest, I read the s_d thread spoiling the X-Factor issue and decided that I didn’t need to buy it anymore and save the $4.
Sorry PAD, I understand that it will lose a sale for you and you have the rights to protect it, but after I knew the twist, there was no point in me buying it anymore.
PAD said in response to Kindle:
I hadn’t given it any thought. This is the first I’ve heard of it. My knee jerk reaction is to say that the authors guild is wrong. An audio book is something very specific: An actor, typically, doing a performance with varying voices and such. Kindle provides nothing more than an electronic voice giving a flat reading.
Can the vision impaired simply buy all their books on tape? Sure. But it’s probably going to be a buttload more expensive.
I suppose the argument can be made that authors are getting screwed on this to some degree. But the bottom line, to me, is that people who are vision impaired or flat out blind have enough problems to deal with. If Kindle facilitates their being able to enjoy books for a reasonable cost, I can’t see coming out against it.
The author’s guilds points are this (as referenced in this interview):
1) Amazon can upgrade the software to make it a lot better in the future, potentially affecting the audiobook market.
2) The text-to-speech is a derivative work of the original ebook, which Amazon did not buy the rights to. The right’s holders need to specifically license this use.
Other places on the internet also seem to point to the fact that the user interface of the Kindle currently doesn’t support usage by blind users (though I imagine that some visually impaired people would be able to use it).
I personally don’t think the Guild’s position has too much merit, so the interview might be a better articulation of the guild’s views.
In any case, the point is moot for now, as Amazon will let publishers decide which books will be allowed to enable text to speech.
—
On the Scans_Daily issue, PAD, am I right in assuming that you thought that the intention of a substantial portion of the posts violated copyright? Did you see any posts that you saw that integrated copyrighted comic panels/pages that you thought didn’t violate copyright or “fair use”?
The problem with “fair use” is that you can’t determine whether or not something is fair use by the number of pages scanned. For example, posting 50% of a work, might be fair use for Action Comics #1, if accomanied by substantial commentary on its effect on comics and society, while posting two pages might not be for a just released comic accompanied only by a summary of the entire work. My guess is that Scans_daily stuck too rigidly to their rules (apparently including a rule to post a maximum of 12 pages of a comic) to figure out whether a post was fair, and didn’t consider whether each individual posting violated copyright.
If much or most of the site was devoted to the summaries of recent issues, posting most of each comic, then I can see legitimate reasons for it to be taken down. If scans_daily is to come back up, then they would need to take a closer look at their policies to make sure that their content isn’t over the (very, very fuzzy) line between copyright infringement and fair use.
Peter, my question was asked in earnest. I was wondering about your opinion, and there was absolutely no reason for you to be such a dìçk about it.
Count me in as another person who won’t be buying any more of your work.
I tried to post this earlier, but I think the spam trap ate it:
A new community has already sprung up on LJ called noscans_daily, which is the discussion part without the scans. (And not, as the name might appear, an anti-scans_daily community!) If those who are displaced by the suspension need a place to gather, they might try there.
The internet is resilient that way.
On the Scans_Daily issue, PAD, am I right in assuming that you thought that the intention of a substantial portion of the posts violated copyright? Did you see any posts that you saw that integrated copyrighted comic panels/pages that you thought didn’t violate copyright or “fair use”?
Did you try maybe READING the initial post that all these comments are attached to? Not just skimming, but reading what Peter WROTE?
Here, I’ll spare you the trouble of scrolling:
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.
My point of view on this is strictly strife-of-the-classes: I don’t see why I should care about the copyright claims of the same CORPORATION that has trademarked the word “superhero” (alongside DC) and is forbidding any others to use it.
I wouldn’t have a problem if Peter David took down LJ over copyright violation of his own work. But he simply sided with a corporation instead. He seems to consider that a reason to blame him less: I see it as a reason to blame him more.
I don’t see why I should care about the copyright of CORPORATIONS that want to extend their rights to perpetuity. The corporations that force the deletion of some “derivative” works of art as fanvids, because they use a song. The copyright laws that forced e.g. Sluggy Freelance to remove the lyrics of songs from its “Fire and Rain” chapter, even though those lyrics perfectly set the mood.
The enemies of SD all speak about the intellectual property rights of ARTISTS, but we’re not talking about the property rights of ARTISTS here, we’re talking about the property rights of a corporation.
Yes, Mr Peter David, the law is on Marvel’s side. The law is on the corporations’ side, we knew that already.
Then the revolution comes, and the law will no longer be on its side, or the state is powerless to enforce it.
I recently donated $20 to Gunnerkrigg Court, a webcomic offered freely on the internet: more than I’ve paid to Marvel my whole life. I’ve donated to Penny && Aggie, I’ve bought books of Order of the Stick. The new model of comics is changing, Mr David, away from the corporations — the Internet has empowered the individual, and the revolution is upon us.
Yes, the sales of Marvel and DC will fall, perhaps both corporations will collapse. Are you sure that will be bad for the artists involved? (And even if it’s bad for the artists, I’m not at all sure it will be bad for the art)
Yes, you have the law on your side. That’s exactly your sin: you sided with a law benefiting the corporations.
Posted by Meexhu
So, I heard your name mentioned with the S_D thing and popped it into google. What did I find?
An old man.
What? Talk about irrelevant…
Posted by BWAAHA
People might not be so annoyed at this if you were a nicer person. Just chill the eff out.
And, of course, showing up as a drive-by here and insulting PAD shows what a nice person you are.
Have you got a blog where i can visit and post irrelevant inslts?
b>Posted by Todd Morman
Marvel was certainly aware of – and clearly tolerating – Scans Daily, even if you weren’t. To claim there’s no possibility that your complaint to Marvel is the main reason the site no longer exists – and that is your claim, is it not? – smacks of deliberate obfuscation.
Considering the number of people (like myself) who regularly visit legal comics sites and had never even heard of the site, it’s quite possible that Marvel wasn’t fully (note “fully”) of what was there.
And the point is that there probably wasn’t time for any legal maneuvers stemming from PAD’s action and the takedown.
Of course, that doesn’t matter to you or the rest of s_d’s vocal supporters, because it being all PAD’s fault absolves you of any moral responsibility for the fact that it was illegal to begin with. I’ll repeat what i said in my first post on this thread: “If you can’t do the time don’t do the crime.”
Posted by Vinnie Bartilucci
Is it the printing of the scans that makes it a copyright violation? Is moviespoilers copyright violation since it publishes detailed and specific plot breakdowns of films? How about the websites that host threads where the major plot points are bandied about and discussed?
The answer to your first question, of course, is “Yes”. The answer to the rest is thatb including the spoilers in the same sentence introduced an accidental red herring.
Spoilers are not (so far, anyway) a violation of copyright law (though JK Rowling’s attorneys seem to want to make it so, since they pursued the case against the guy with the concordance even after he offered to rewrite it without the copyright material) – unless you include copyrighted material as part of them.
The people who maintain that S-D was on the white side of the card will rant and rave, and use you as their Emmanuel Goldstein. Those who maintain that it was an evil band of thieves will hail the day as a triumph of intellectual property, ad will never dream of assigning you any of the credit.
My position is not that s_d was a “band of thieves” – since i never heard of it before this blew up, i can’t say – nor is it that the takedown was “a triumph of intellectual property” (same reason). My point it that PAD’s itervention was almost certaionly not the proximate cause (though it possibly could have been the detonator that sets off the big charge of C4 in the arms dealer’s warehouse), and that those who are vilifying him here are Way Off Base.
Posted by The StarWolf at March 1, 2009 01:47 PM
Quite so.
Actually, it’s pretty hard – if not impossible – to lose a copyright that way. It’s trademarks that have to be defended rigourously; just ask the Coca Cola company or Caterpillar (or Bayer).
I suspect part of what’s happening is a backlash against the increasingly ridiculous copyright/intellectual property laws out there.
Consider, when I was a pre-teen I went under the knife a couple of times. For all I know, one of those times may well have saved my life. Yet, decades later I’m not still paying money to the surgreon and his team thanks to whose work I am able to enjoy that continued life.
Different question. If you were undergoing the same surgery again, you’d be expected to pay again. If you’re getting the benefit of the creator’s work, you ought to pay.
And, i point out, you bought that surgery once and paid for it once and you have the benefits. If you buy a comic PAD wrote, you can re-read it until it falls apart without paying again.
Yet, according to the new laws, I should pay some copyright holder for a computer program I may be using FIFTY YEARS AFTER THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR???
I believe it’s seventy-five, which is why some works by Kipling and/or Wells actually came back into copyright a while ago.
That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Yes, PAD works hard and turns out good products and he should be well renumerated for it. But in perpetuity? Unto the nth generation?
Okay, let’s take a look at that. If someone builds an office building, is it fair for his heirs to go on collecting rents on the offices and deciding who may use them after his death, or should anyone who wants to do so be free to move in and use it in any way they want?
In fact, i’ll turn your question on its head – is it fair for the heirs of authors and artists to be deprived of their inheritance after a stated number of years?
I then got a follow-up that said, “It was taken down before we even approached them.” As far as I was concerned, that was the end of it. A few days later, the entire site was shut down.
Again, all I am saying is that it is still entirely possible that it was your complaint about copyright violation that resulted in LiveJournal shutting the site down at this point in time, when it had been running for years with the knowledge and tacit approval of Marvel, DC and LiveJournal. It’s astonishing that you continue to deny the very *possibility* of that being true.
Look, Peter, it’s pretty obvious you didn’t understand what was going on at Scans Daily. You certainly didn’t take the time to understand, or show basic respect to the organizers by contacting them with your concerns. That might have clarified, for instance, that they did have a “no more than half the comic” rule. Now, personally, I agree with you that was too much to allow, but as others have noted here, what constitutes “fair use” is a moving target set by case law, and thus a gray area that deserves a more thoughtful, cooperative response than your kneejerk reaction, which seems to have been fueled at least in part by nasty comments about your work at the forum in question.
Since you don’t seem able to admit you were in any way, shape or form even the slightest in the wrong, here’s one look at how someone who both appreciates comics fandom *and* groks how Web communities work would have handled it: contacted the moderators of the community, cc’ing Marvel and anyone else you thought should know about it (and probably did already, but leave that aside), and say, “I think this is a pretty blatant copyright violation. Can we talk about how much of each comic they’re scanning, and how much should be acceptable, and try to come to some sort of agreement that would keep what’s obviously a thriving discussion group active while protecting sales and creator’s rights? Thanks.”
How hard would that have been? If you’d bothered to do that, I’m sure a compromise solution could have easily been reached, and you wouldn’t have this permanent stain on your online reputation, and the Scans Daily community would have adjusted to a new reality without losing years of its archived history.
Please reconsider your approach to these kinds of episodes in the future.
How ironic that I put X-Factor on my pull list BECAUSE of scans_daily.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris
I wouldn’t have a problem if Peter David took down LJ over copyright violation of his own work. But he simply sided with a corporation instead. He seems to consider that a reason to blame him less: I see it as a reason to blame him more.
What parts of “Peter doesn’t own the copyright and so has no standing in the matter; Marvel owns it and so is the one who has to take (or not take) action” or “Peter informed the copyright owner that a possible violations was taking place” or “Marvel got back to PAD and told him that the material was already taken down before they contacted LJ or Photobucket” are unclear to you?
Or don’t you want to understand that, since that means that the convenient PAD turnip ghost you and the other whiners have created to shift the blame from your/their own illegal actions isn’t responsible?
As to the eevilll CORPORATION, i will point out that a CORPORATION has a responsibility to its stockholders to make sure that their investments are protected.
Oh – and on a level you and some of the others here may comprehend better:
“Your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries. I take out my private parts and wave them at your aunties! Now go away before I taunt you some mnore!”
(The preceding was an example of Fair Use.
Todd Morman: Again, all I am saying is that it is still entirely possible that it was your complaint about copyright violation that resulted in LiveJournal shutting the site down…
Luigi Novi: And how, pray tell, could it, if it was taken down before the person Peter reported this to approached them?
StarWolf: Yet, according to the new laws, I should pay some copyright holder for a computer program I may be using FIFTY YEARS AFTER THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR???
Luigi Novi: If that copyright holder is the one making the program that you bought, um, yeah, that’s how it works. What does the death of the author have to do with it?
StarWolf: Interesting, isn’t it, how not even the most divisive political comment here managed to raise anywhere near this many replies in as short a time. Talk about touching a nerve, and what does that say about those making with all the comments?
Luigi Novi: Given that some have remarked before how political threads generate so much more posts than comic book-oriented ones (I think it might’ve been Peter who said this), yeah, I noticed that too.
Oh for Pete’s sake. Sad that its gone – but you all knew it was technically illegal and could be pulled at any time.
now go use the power of the internet and do it again, but better, where you help support the creators you like and make sure that great books get enough sales to not be cancelled.
Mike Weber — none of those parts were unclear to me, since indeed they were the very parts that I emphasized, and they constituted my very point: Peter David wasn’t defending his own claim, he was defending Marvel’s. That was his sin: He was defending a corporation that like other corporations have abused the law time and again.
“As to the eevilll CORPORATION, i will point out that a CORPORATION has a responsibility to its stockholders to make sure that their investments are protected”
You’re being nonsensical. “Responsibility to its stockholders”? There’s no Hive Overmind of the Corporations: The corporation IS the stockholders, for all intends and purposes. So all you’re saying is “The stockholders are protecting their own investment”.
“Responsibility to the stockholders” is just an Orwellian attempt to misconstrue greed for moral duty.
Luigi Novi: And how, pray tell, could it, if it was taken down before the person Peter reported this to approached them?
You’re confused about the timeline, I think. The way I get it:
– Peter David notifies Marvel about copyright violation
– Copyrighted material are taken down
– Marvel notifies LJ about material. (But the particular material have already been taken down)
– In response LJ takes down the WHOLE of the community.
So, Marvel (and indirectly Peter David) are responsible for the removal of the community, not the material.
And how, pray tell, could it, if it was taken down before the person Peter reported this to approached them?
Luigi, the *specific images* were taken down from Photobucket before Marvel approached LiveJournal, according to Peter. But the *site* – that is, the entire Scans Daily LiveJournal community, including its years of archives – wasn’t taken down until after.
Hope that clears things up for you.
Lulu, perhaps I missed it, but I didn’t see PAD reply to your question about iTunes at all. I saw David S. and Luigi Nova reply, but not Peter.
Lulu, unless I missed something (it’s a big thread), the only one who responded to your question was Luigi Novi.
Peter, my question was asked in earnest. I was wondering about your opinion, and there was absolutely no reason for you to be such a dìçk about it. Count me in as another person who won’t be buying any more of your work.
What are you talking about? You asked the question about iTunes, right? Luigi answered it, pointing out that the samples are worked out in concert with the copyright holders, and thus it’s no problem. Which is accurate and since I had nothing to add to it, I didn’t add anything. Granted, he was kind of acerbic in his response, but it was his response, not mine.
So basically even if I say and do nothing at all, people declare I’m a dìçk and they’re going to stop buying my work.
PAD
I don’t see why I should care about the copyright claims of the same CORPORATION that has trademarked the word “superhero” (alongside DC) and is forbidding any others to use it.
I don’t see why I should care about the lock you have on your front door. I should just be able to come in and boost your electronics equipment.
PAD
>Oh for Pete’s sake. Sad that its gone – but you all knew it was technically illegal and could be pulled at any time.
Oh, they didn’t know it was illegal. They didn’t WANT to know that it was illegal. Some of them STILL don’t want to know that it was illegal. Just like some folks convince themselves that paying taxes isn’t required under the law, due to some imaginary loophole in the constitution.
Which, incidentally, was more response than it deserved.
Tom Morman: Look, Peter, it’s pretty obvious you didn’t understand what was going on at Scans Daily.
Luigi Novi: Sure. He disagrees with you, which means, therefore, ipso facto, he has some type of cognitive problem regarding this issue. Never mind that he made it clear that he visited the site.
Oh no, if someone disagrees with you or reports something you like that was illegal, even if he clearly had nothing to do with its suspension, it must be because he lacks “understanding”. Riiiiiiiiight.
Tom Morman: You certainly didn’t take the time to understand, or show basic respect to the organizers by contacting them with your concerns.
Luigi Novi: One more time: Peter is not the copyright holder of the titles in question, and therefore, has zero authority to do this. If they had posted Fallen Angel, of which he is the holder, he would’ve done so, as he explicitly stated in his February 28, 1:22pm post. Thank you again for showing that you’re not interested in actually reading what has been said here.
Or to put it another way:
I’m not claiming you’re obfuscating because you made this claim once. I’m claiming you’re obfuscating by repeatedly claiming this, even though this claim has been answered and refuted previously by Peter and numerous others here.
Tom Morman: That might have clarified, for instance, that they did have a “no more than half the comic” rule. Now, personally, I agree with you that was too much to allow, but as others have noted here, what constitutes “fair use” is a moving target set by case law, and thus a gray area…
Luigi Novi: And as has been made clear on this thread numerous times, half a comic book is not Fair Use. Nothing “gray” about it.
Four pages, maybe five, falls under Fair Use. Half does not.
Tom Morman: …that deserves a more thoughtful, cooperative response than your kneejerk reaction, which seems to have been fueled at least in part by nasty comments about your work at the forum in question.
Luigi Novi: And when you can illustrate this accusation with something resembling evidence, feel free to do so. Because unlike you, I actually read Peter’s blog entry, and he described why he did what he did, never once mentioning nasty comments.
Moreover, if he were motivated by nasty comments, don’t you think he’d delete lots of the posts made over the years on this very site, including a bunch made on this thread, including yours? But in fact, the only time he does so is when someone goes after his family, or spams the site. That tells you something about his maturity level when he is criticized, and if you had the ability to form coherent reasoning, you’d admit that this makes it unlikely that he’d take action against a site for simply making “nasty comments.”
But you can’t admit that, can you?
Because that would require you to abandon this accusation, and you just plain don’t wanna do that.
Right?
Tom Morman: Since you don’t seem able to admit you were in any way, shape or form even the slightest in the wrong…
Luigi Novi: Of course he’s able. He’s apologized to people before, including on this site. And the reason for that is that reasonable criteria for doing so were met in those instances.
You, of course, are incapable of recognizing what these criteria are, and thus, you assume, in knee-jerk fashion, that you’re automatically owed such an admission.
Narcissist, gaze upon thyself.
Tom Morman: …here’s one look at how someone who both appreciates comics fandom *and* groks how Web communities work would have handled it: contacted the moderators of the community, cc’ing Marvel and anyone else you thought should know about it (and probably did already, but leave that aside), and say, “I think this is a pretty blatant copyright violation. Can we talk about how much of each comic they’re scanning, and how much should be acceptable, and try to come to some sort of agreement that would keep what’s obviously a thriving discussion group active while protecting sales and creator’s rights? Thanks.”
Luigi Novi: I would imagine that Marvel and Peter would.
But LiveJournal shut down the site before that could happen.
And yet you continue to blame Peter for this.
How hard would that have been? If you’d bothered to do that, I’m sure a compromise solution could have easily been reached, and you wouldn’t have this permanent stain on your online reputation, and the Scans Daily community would have adjusted to a new reality without losing years of its archived history.
Please reconsider your approach to these kinds of episodes in the future.
Lulu: Peter, my question was asked in earnest. I was wondering about your opinion, and there was absolutely no reason for you to be such a dìçk about it.
Luigi Novi: Where did he even answer your question? I don’t see a post from him in which he did so. Others did, but I don’t recall seeing Peter do so, and a search for “iTunes” on this thread revealed nothing from him.
Aris Katsaris: I wouldn’t have a problem if Peter David took down LJ over copyright violation of his own work. But he simply sided with a corporation instead.
Luigi Novi: Yeah, because for him to report a copyright violation to the corporation for which he works under an exclusive contract is so unreasonable, ain’t it? After all, it’s not like corporations have rights over the stuff they own, right? It’s not like corporations produce stuff that you enjoy, like those comics you read, right?
Aris Katsaris: He seems to consider that a reason to blame him less: I see it as a reason to blame him more.
Luigi Novi: Yeah, imagine that. Imagine, pointing out that the site was shut down before Marvel even approached them as a way to argue that he’s blameless. Imagine, pointing out that the crime was committed by the people violating copyright, and not the victims addressing this!
Aris Katsaris: I don’t see why I should care about the copyright of CORPORATIONS that want to extend their rights to perpetuity.
Luigi Novi: No one said you should.
So, I heard your name mentioned with the S_D thing and popped it into google. What did I find?
An old man.
What? Talk about irrelevant..
Hey, a few years ago, he would have said “fat old man.” I consider that a personal triumph.
PAD (desperately looking for any upsides he can, knowing that somewhere out there Lulu is telling people how I was a dìçk to her because of what someone else said to her…)
“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.”
Actually, I’d like to see a semi-regular thread where you discuss current comics. Something like Cowboy Pete. Although I dunno if that would be too awkward given that you’re active in the industry.
“I don’t see why I should care about the lock you have on your front door.”
Analogies are always useless in an argument, because everyone can always make whatever stretched analogy they want to support the point. I find it more useful to argue realities. We’re discussing Marvel’s rights and abuse thereof, not the lock in my front door.
But in response to your question: Because I did not tyranically abuse the law, like Marvel has done.
Mr. David, we understand you’re Lawful. What we’re trying to get you to understand is that you ended up siding with the Lawful Evil, not any sort of Lawful Good.
What I find laughable are the suggestions that Mr. David should have contacted the site and asked them to remove the material he thought was infringement. Does one go to a thief and politely ask for one’s property back? Is it his responsibility to contact every comics site and ask them not to steal his or other’s property? Exactly when would he get any actual writing done, then?
I also note that it was a moderated site. Is nobody angry that the moderators didn’t do their job of enforcing the TOS?
And finally, there’s the chorus that Marvel/DC
‘tacitly approved’ of the sit because it had never been shut down before. Could somebody please point out to me exactly which individuals constitute Marvel and DC? Just because some guy in the marketing office might have known about the site doesn’t mean that The Company did.
I find it more useful to argue realities. We’re discussing Marvel’s rights and abuse thereof, not the lock in my front door.
We’re arguing realities? Because the realities are: (1) What was happening on Scans was illegal; (2) In a civilized and conscientious society, if you see something illegal going on, you bring it to the attention of the proper authorities; (3) if you are caught out at doing something illegal, you have no one to blame but yourself.
See, I thought you were arguing unrealities since what you are postulating is, (1) Scans was illegal but that’s okay, (2) I shouldn’t have said anything to Marvel, (3) the only person to be blamed here is me.
Bizarro head hurt.
PAD
Posted by: Aris Katsaris at March 1, 2009 03:05 PM
“The enemies of SD all speak about the intellectual property rights of ARTISTS, but we’re not talking about the property rights of ARTISTS here, we’re talking about the property rights of a corporation.”
“The enemies of SD”? Wow, at last we have a cool name for our evil organisation!
I’m really, really not going to wade into trying to address this crap. You either live in the real world and understand how some artists put food on the table or you don’t.
“Yes, Mr Peter David, the law is on Marvel’s side. The law is on the corporations’ side, we knew that already.”
So why are so many people so outraged that the law turned round and bit them in the ášš?
Personally, I think some unknown but probably small percentage of posters at SD crossed the line, the mods at SD – for whatever genuinely good and valid reasons – didn’t manage to keep them on the right side of the line, TPTB at Livejournal became aware of the situation and nuked the village in order to save it, without sending in a negotiation team first.
Ya know, PAD has publicly said what he did, when his life would have been a dámņëd sight quieter if he’d kept his head down. It would be nice if a few more people said either “we screwed the pooch” or at least “we was there and knew the pooch was getting screwed” instead of collectively defending and/or denying the ravishment of Rover!
(That’s not slagging the SD mods – I moonlight as RPG moderator on a PC game site with a much smaller volume of members and posters than SD had, and that’s logistically and diplomatically challenging at times)
Cheers.
Luigi Novi — you didn’t ask me any question that wasn’t rhetorical, nor made any point that wasn’t mockery. The one factoid you mention (“site was shut down before Marvel even approached them”) is simply WRONG.
And as for “It’s not like corporations produce stuff that you enjoy, like those comics you read, right?” — what these corporations mainly do is PREVENT the publication of stuff I’d enjoy.
That’s what their “copyright for perpetuity” is all about. Personally I’d love to see Batman’s and Spiderman’s copyrights expire, so that any artist — Gaiman, Moore, Peter David, WHOMEVER do whatever they want with the characters without needing prior permission from DC or Marvel.
Euripides was able to use the character of Achilles without needing permission from Homer Inc.
Mr. David, we understand you’re Lawful. What we’re trying to get you to understand is that you ended up siding with the Lawful Evil, not any sort of Lawful Good.
Uh oh. Now you’ve ticked off Leroy Jenkins.
Folks, you’ve jumped the shark. At first I was impressed with how nice the folks from S_D seemed. But now…good luck with the new version that will no doubt come out but this doesn’t seem like a group worth being a part of. Then again, it isn’t fair to judge everyone by the actions of a few. But dámņ….
Hmmmn,
Is it time to revive the Friends of Peter David bodyguard list? Keeping watch for those and thier dixie cups full of whatever…..
“(2) In a civilized and conscientious society, if you see something illegal going on, you bring it to the attention of the proper authorities;”
I wonder if you can even acknowledge the possibility of an unjust law. Or heard of civil disobedience (not that scans_daily was engaging in such — they weren’t politically minded enough).
If you want to argue that copyright law is just that’s one thing. Where I’m concerned, copyright law is clearly unjust: So that you’re simply saying LAW IS THE LAW IS THE LAW… you’re not convincing me or any likeminded individuals.
What if the community relocates to servers in some country where copyright law is saner and it’s actually legal there? Would you have a problem with that?
Anyway. Sorry for the misread on my part.
No problem. I’m not the best at putting my thoughts down ‘on paper’ at times, and I certainly have my share of misreads as well. 🙂
but after I knew the twist, there was no point in me buying it anymore.
Which is why PAD spent weeks specifically asking people to not spoil the book. Yet, people are doing it anyway. Go figure.
You’re being nonsensical.
Said the kettle to the pot…
I’m wondering who many of you would be bìŧçhìņg and whining at with SD shut down had PAD’s name not been thrown out there as the scapegoat for so much stupidity.
Sigh. Because there aren’t enough posts here, I think I’ll post and get this thread going…
I remember an argument I had with a student years ago about MP3 file sharing. She insisted that music should be free and that she had the “right” to pirate stuff all she wanted. PLUS, the artists would still make more money, even though that wasn’t the point. I tried arguing PAD’s basic position on the issue, and she effectively stuck her fingers in her ears and went, “LA LA LA” etc. Man, what annoying argument with someone completely unreasonable. (Even though I usually liked having her in my class.)
This thread is deja vu all over again.
FWIW, PAD, Luigi, and others: thanks for being bastions of reasonability. PAD, thanks for the consistently entertaining comics and novels. And thanks for this site.
It’s way better than most of the alternatives, especially when Kathleen deletes posts AND leaves a note explaining why she deleted them. Seriously, that’s one of the best things I’ve seen in a long time on a moderated site. Much better than “Comment deleted” without explanaion.
I look forward to FALLEN ANGEL (Vol 3) #1. I hope that it gets even half the promotion it deserves.
Eric
Where I’m concerned, copyright law is clearly unjust
So you get the law changed. You don’t just sit there and break it and claim that you’re in the right Just Because You Say So.
Good lord. How do some of you get through the day?
Aris Katsaris: none of those parts were unclear to me, since indeed they were the very parts that I emphasized, and they constituted my very point: Peter David wasn’t defending his own claim, he was defending Marvel’s. That was his sin: He was defending a corporation that like other corporations have abused the law time and again.
Luigi Novi: What in the world does one have to do with the other? What laws have Marvel abused? And in what way does this justify violating their copyright? Because you’re just plain anti-corporate (despite the fact that you benefit from the things that corporations produce), and perceive Marvel to have abused the law, you think it’s justified to break the law? Gimme a break. If you don’t like corporations, then don’t patronize their products.
Luigi Novi: And how, pray tell, could it, if it was taken down before the person Peter reported this to approached them?
Aris Katsaris: You’re confused about the timeline, I think. The way I get it:
– Peter David notifies Marvel about copyright violation
– Copyrighted material are taken down
– Marvel notifies LJ about material. (But the particular material have already been taken down)
– In response LJ takes down the WHOLE of the community.
Luigi Novi: The way you “get it” is wrong, since Peter explicitly described the timeline, and by fabricating your own version of it out of nothing, you’re again proving that you either haven’t read his posts (and are thus just lying by making up a timeline to your liking), or you have read his posts, and are just ignoring it, in which case….well, you’re still lying.
I refer you to this statement by Peter at 2:23pm:
Peter David: Basically after seeing the postings through the link from CBR, I sent an e-mail to Marvel (to whom is none of your business) that said, “I think this is a copyright violation, so I thought I’d bring it to your attention.” They said they’d look into it. I then got a follow-up that said, “It was taken down before we even approached them.” As far as I was concerned, that was the end of it. A few days later, the entire site was shut down.
Nothing in that statement indicates that LJ initially took down only the copyrighted material, or that Marvel ever notified LJ after this, or at all. It indicates that the site was taken down before Marvel ever approached LJ.
Reading comprehension not your strong suit?
Or is “the way I get it” just your euphemistic way of saying that you’re a pathological liar?
Todd Morman: Luigi, the *specific images* were taken down from Photobucket before Marvel approached LiveJournal, according to Peter. But the *site* – that is, the entire Scans Daily LiveJournal community, including its years of archives – wasn’t taken down until after.
Luigi Novi: But before Marvel even approached them, according to Peter’s contact.
Hence the original question.
How could Peter or Marvel be responsible for this if it was taken down before Marvel approached them?
Does it occur to you, perhaps, that LiveJournal went through the site, and decided on its own to suspend the account, pending further investigation, to make sure that there wasn’t further copyrighted material in those “years of archives”? Because that’s what they actually did: Suspend it pending further investigation, as Laura pointed out here at 8:11am. Have you excluded this possibility?
Peter David: What are you talking about? You asked the question about iTunes, right? Luigi answered it, pointing out that the samples are worked out in concert with the copyright holders, and thus it’s no problem. Which is accurate and since I had nothing to add to it, I didn’t add anything. Granted, he was kind of acerbic in his response, but it was his response, not mine. So basically even if I say and do nothing at all, people declare I’m a dìçk and they’re going to stop buying my work.
Luigi Novi: I’m not sure if she was referencing my response or David S’, since both of use responded to it above:
This is David S’s response, from his 3:04pm post yesterday:
Probably not, seeing as those have been legally CLEARED to be there. Good lord, where do these people come from?
Also, a minor clarification with regards this:
“Did you know its LEGAL to make a private copy of copyrighted music even if the source isn’t legal?”
The country being refered to in the above would be Spain (which I forgot to mention).
This was my response from 3:47pm yesterday:
Why would he? iTunes posts previews and full songs LEGALLY, with the PERMISSION of the copyright holder, and in any event, a small portion of a larger work does not violate Fair Use. If you bothered to actually read what Peter has said here, both in his blog entry, and in his 1:22pm post, for example, you wouldn’t have to ask such a question.
I’m not sure if my post was that “acerbic”, since while I’m frustrated by people who ask questions that are answered by stuff already on the thread, I wouldn’t say that I’m bitter about it, but I don’t know if mine or David’s was the one Lulu was referring to. In any event, neither seems to be particularly dickish.
Aris Katsaris: Because I did not tyranically abuse the law, like Marvel has done. Mr. David, we understand you’re Lawful. What we’re trying to get you to understand is that you ended up siding with the Lawful Evil, not any sort of Lawful Good.
Luigi Novi: And who gets to decide who should be protected by the law and should not be? You? Please. You obviously cannot articulate a cogent point, and can only make anti-corporate commie rants. The only difference between a corporation and a small, mom-and-pop or independent operation is level of success. Those corporations all started somewhere small with a few people who wanted to produce something that the public wants, and that includes you. On what basis do you feel people should be appointed to decide which laws get followed and which get broken? No society can function that way, where selfish individuals act like following the law is optional until they jolly well don’t feel like it. In any event, if you consider that corporation to be “Lawful Evil”, what does it make you for willingly patronizing its products? How do you rationalize this in your version of “reality”, Aris?
Aris Katsaris: Luigi Novi — you didn’t ask me any question that wasn’t rhetorical, nor made any point that wasn’t mockery. The one factoid you mention (“site was shut down before Marvel even approached them”) is simply WRONG.
Luigi Novi: Not according to Peter. What evidence do you have that establishes that it is?
Aris Katsaris: And as for “It’s not like corporations produce stuff that you enjoy, like those comics you read, right?” — what these corporations mainly do is PREVENT the publication of stuff I’d enjoy.
Luigi Novi: Marvel doesn’t prevent publication of anything. People are free to publish what they want, just as you’re free to read it.
Aris Katsaris: That’s what their “copyright for perpetuity” is all about. Personally I’d love to see Batman’s and Spiderman’s copyrights expire, so that any artist — Gaiman, Moore, Peter David, WHOMEVER do whatever they want with the characters without needing prior permission from DC or Marvel.
Luigi Novi: And if copyrights expire, that’s a legal aspect of their existence, and part of “reality”. But I thought you weren’t interested in that, and were only interested in violating their copyrights?
Aris Katsaris: I wonder if you can even acknowledge the possibility of an unjust law.
Luigi Novi: Well, let’s see, Peter has often criticized efforts to keep gay marriage illegal, so yeah, I think he has.
Aris Katsaris: Or heard of civil disobedience (not that scans_daily was engaging in such — they weren’t politically minded enough).
Luigi Novi: See, this is why it’s hard to take someone like you seriously. You bring up a term—civil disobedience—that harkens back to the struggle for basic humans rights, something that has jack-all to do with people violating the copyright of people who own an intellectual property, but then in the next breath, you admit that it has jack-all to do with it. So if that’s the case, then why did you bring it up? You acknowledge that it’s an irrelevant analogy, but use it anyway?
“So you get the law changed.”
Cool, let me know how one goes about doing that. Which American presidential candidate supported such radical corrections to copyright law?
And how does a European go about supporting an Americal presidential candidate since I’m not legally allowed to donate to them? (And that law I kinda respect, since I appreciate the need to diminish foreign monetary influence in national politics)
You know its funny, I really grew to appreciate your work through that community, and I’m sure you got a lot of other fans through scans_daily. But I honestly feel you took part in dismantling one of the greatest resources for comic fans on the internet, and I will not purchase anything with your name on it, ever again. So in the short of it, thanks a lot áššhølë.
Luigi, you’re uncivil and impolite. And you don’t even read the things you post yourself, which actually confirm my version of the timeline, not yours. Not interested in responding to your insults.
And frankly, I don’t see why it matters to you so much which timeline was correct, since according to you, Marvel would have been on the right to take down SD anyway.
Anyway the very fact that you believe the Marvel Corporation is justly using copyright law, makes your whole argument irrelevant to us who believe they’re abusing it instead. Atleast some others (e.g. Craig) argue that we must obey the law even if we find it unjust: Another respectable position, though I wonder if Craig or Peter David would report to “the proper authorities” things like Crimes against Fornication, or if his obedience for the law is (just as mine) dependent on its perceived justice.
sMr. David, we understand you’re Lawful. What we’re trying to get you to understand is that you ended up siding with the Lawful Evil, not any sort of Lawful Good.
Aris, it does nothing for your credibility to reduce everything to Dungeons & Dragons character alignments. Seriously.
As for the “revolution,” if large comic-book companies like Marvel and DC all go out of business (which is doubtful) who the hëll is going to pay artists and writers to put in 40-plus hour weeks to provide you with the entertainment to which you think you’re entitled? People hitting tip jars? Give me a break.
Yes, the sales of Marvel and DC will fall, perhaps both corporations will collapse. Are you sure that will be bad for the artists involved? (And even if it’s bad for the artists, I’m not at all sure it will be bad for the art)
What’s bad for the artist won’t be bad for the art? You’re serious?
Marvel’s copyright-protected material wasn’t created by fans like you. It was created through the hard work of professional writers and artists. Stealing Marvel’s intellectual property doesn’t help them, now, does it? Stop pretending that you care about anything other than your own selfish desires.
To Aris, Lulu, and the numerous other attackers coming out of the woodwork: when my niece doesn’t get her way, she throws a tantrum. Your behavior is no different. You are all acting exactly like a five-year-old child.
So…LJ shuts down S_D before Marvel’s legal department even has a chance to investigate the potential violations and it’s still somehow PAD’s fault?
You’d think a community based around reading forum posts would…I dunno…read forum posts.
So you get the law changed. You don’t just sit there and break it and claim that you’re in the right Just Because You Say So.
Well, to be sure, according to the principles of civil disobedience, we all have a moral obligation to break unjust laws when we encounter them. If I’m to understand that part of the point of scanning and reading comics online is to protest the injustice of United States copyright law, then yeah– breaking the law was the “right” thing to do.
However, civil disobedience also requires the protester/ criminal to accept punishment peacefully. You can feel free to write letters, sing protest songs, and even boycott the work of a once-beloved creator. But showing up on someone else’s blog to proclaim that he is an “áššhølë” or a “dìçk” because you’ve been forced to accept the legal consequences of breaking an unjust law– well, it’s not actually civil, is it?
And, of course, this entire discussion begs the question– are copyright laws unjust? That is to say, are they in opposition to moral law? Do they degrade human personality? Are they applied unevenly to different citizens? I don’t see it, myself. Sure, some people in the comic book industry have taken advantage of copyright laws to perpetuate injustice against creators, but I’m not sure that the law itself is to blame in these circumstances.
Aris Katsaris: Luigi, you’re uncivil and impolite.
Luigi Novi: And you promote theft and selective adherence to property rights.
Aris Katsaris: And you don’t even read the things you post yourself, which actually confirm my version of the timeline, not yours.
Luigi Novi: An interesting assertion, since the things I’ve posted myself quoted Peter, who indicated the opposite.
Aris Katsaris: And frankly, I don’t see why it matters to you so much which timeline was correct…
Luigi Novi: So now which timeline was correct isn’t important? That’s funny, I thought you were the one interested in arguing “realities”. What happened to that? The “reality” of what really happened is no longer important? Was it ever to you?
Aris Katsaris: Anyway the very fact that you believe the Marvel Corporation is justly using copyright law, makes your whole argument irrelevant to us who believe they’re abusing it instead. Atleast some others (e.g. Craig) argue that we must obey the law even if we find it unjust: Another respectable position, though I wonder if Craig or Peter David would report to “the proper authorities” things like Crimes against Fornication, or if his obedience for the law is (just as mine) dependent on its perceived justice.
Luigi Novi: The difference being, of course, that when Peter and I disagree with laws against fornication, we provide detailed arguments as to why those laws are wrong, based on logic, history, documented facts, reasoning, an attempt to maintain internal consistency in our adherence to moral principles, provisionalism, etc. In other words, everything you haven’t provided for your anti-corporate feverishness.
Btw, if you’re so anti-corporate, how are you posting to this site? Are you using a communal computer in a hut, hooked up to a generator attached to a guy riding a homemade bicycle? Is your connection dial-up, DSL, cable, T1, or is it just made of granola?
Amazing. I’ve been buying comics for over half my life, since I was a 12-year-old girl, and I managed to do all that without following a comm like S_D. I even managed to get into PAD’s work simply by surfing around the Wiki articles on Marvel; no copyright violation necessary. And for some reason, when I find a creator whose work I enjoy, I keep on paying for that work for as long as I enjoy it. Writers are people, and people aren’t perfect. They’re all likely to do something at some point that’ll annoy me. I think that’s a pretty thin reason to boycott a creative work that I’d otherwise enjoy.
Looking at this thread today, however, I can’t imagine how I ever managed to become a comics reader.
Also, if I were to catch someone scanning 100 pages of a 329-page novel that I wrote (let alone half the book) and posting it on LJ, I might not be able to stop it, but I can’t say I’d consider it fair use.
Just repeating a few things that have already been said already as it seems people don’t pay attention:
To the idiots uploading everything of PAD’s to the internet, go away. Cut your internet connections. And get out of the house. Get off our side. The same goes for anyone making deathwishes on PAD.
To PAD, assuming that it was your complaint that brought Scans_Daily down, congratulations. You had the legal and moral right to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
To many of PAD’s defenders, Scans_Daily did not produce full issues. (Fullscans_Daily did and was shut down to minimal reaction except rolled eyes). It was not the same as full fledged torrenting because it was pulling highlights rather than presenting whole issues.
I keep my eyes open. But the last time I recall seeing advertising for comics or news articles about comics outside a comics shop or the inside of a comic was either the debut of Batwoman or the death of Captain America. Comic advertising sucks at getting new readers. And most other forms of advertising require the people to hunt down the comics rather than the other way. I need to work to read a preview of something. Scans_Daily brought the previews to us (and more). And there are numerous testimonials in this thread alone about people who (like me) either got into comics or back into comics via Scans_Daily. (And believe it or not, many places don’t have comic shops, many comic shops aren’t welcoming, and many don’t allow any form of browsing).
“Stealing Marvel’s intellectual property doesn’t help them, now, does it? Stop pretending that you care about anything other than your own selfish desires.”
As I’ve said, I donate to webcomics artists I like. So it’s not just about my selfish desires. It’s about encouraging a different model.
I believe that Peter David is doing what HE thinks is the right thing (though I certainly disagree with him), why can’t you accept that I’m doing what *I* think is the right thing? I believe that severely limiting Marvel’s and DC’s copyright privileges would be good for the artform. And I believe that an unjust law is best violated.
You may disagree with me, but respect me enough to consider me sincere, same way I consider Peter David sincere.
“What’s bad for the artist won’t be bad for the art?”
I mentioned fanvidding as an example: An art form that might or might not benefit the songmakers whose songs it utilizes, but is a beautiful form of art in its own right.