One would think that with a message thread of over five hundred entries, I would have responded to every aspect of a topic imaginable. (Not that responses really matter to the hit and runners who come in with their minds made up, don’t read the thread, hurl invective and boycotts and then split.) But in cruising around the blogosophere that currently portrays me as being so poisonous that a tarantula could bite me and die, there is apparently one aspect that I have yet to address.
It has been wondered in several places whether I concur with the concept that is popularly referred to as “Byrne Stealing.” Namely, John Byrne’s philosophy that reading through a book on the stands and then putting it back is basically theft. Was I, in letting Marvel know about a potential copyright violation, saying that Byrne was right?
Well…hypothetically, he is. In the hypothetical comic shop that he owns (let’s call it Byrne’s Book Store, or Byrne’s BS for short) he is absolutely correct. The books are his physical property. Absent any state or federal laws that prohibit browsing, he gets to decide what does and does not constitute abuse of his property. If you’re willingly dealing with Byrne’s BS, then you don’t get to just stand around in Byrne’s BS, inspecting and fondling comics and reading them while munching on a corn dog, with a big Byrne BS-eating grin on your face. And if he yells at you about it, you can certainly storm out and announce that you are never going to stick your head into Byrne’s BS again. But don’t kid a kidder: It was Byrne, and you knew what sort of BS you were going to be dealing with when you walked in.
However—and here’s the sticky part—Byrne doesn’t get to decide what’s best for other people’s property. Just his own.
Many is the time that I’ve walked into my local Borders and seen people relaxing on couches or in the café, reading books or magazines that they have yet to purchase. They treat the place like a library. They sit there and read books (not mine, of course, because, y’know, who stocks those?) and apparently feel under no obligation to buy them. And if John Byrne waltzed into that store and started accusing them of theft, then the store manager and clerks would have him thrown out.
Why? It’s their store. They get to decide. Again, absent state and federal laws, they set the terms of right and wrong. They have big old magnetic strip detectors set up at the front door to stop you from walking out without paying for a book, but if you sit there, read an entire issue of Final Crisis #7 (presumably without spilling coffee on it or doing a spit-take on it or in some way rendering it unsalable) and put it back, Borders has effectively decided that that’s permissible.
Which they can do.
Because it’s their property and they get to decide what to do with it and what constitutes fair use of it.
So in Borders, reading Final Crisis #7 and putting it back isn’t stealing, Byrne- or otherwise.
Because. It’s their. Property.
Now…here’s where it gets entertaining.
The people who are running around cursing my name and crying boycott and writing my wife threatening e-mails (because she had so much to do with S-D being shut down)—the very same people who would not hesitate to download the latest virus protection software to prevent someone from helping themselves to whatever is on their own computer—are perfectly sanguine with deciding what Marvel should and should not do with Marvel’s property. The images, the characters, the stories…those are all Marvel’s. Legally. Morally. In every way that human beings have to measure such things, it’s Marvel’s property. Granted, the comic book itself is the fan’s property once it has been purchased. Which entitles them to give the physical comic to as many friends as they want to loan it out to, or even resell it if they’re so inclined. It does not, however, give them the right to reproduce it and redistribute it—which is what putting it out onto the net basically is–because there are specific laws that say they can’t do that. For that matter, there are specific rules on Live Journal that say they can’t do that, and Live Journal gets to make their own determinations of how best to handle their own property.
Some people are claiming that Marvel and DC and other major publishers should embrace the concept of having anybody, anytime, do whatever the hëll they want with the publishers’ property because the fans have decided that it’s going to be beneficial to the publishers. The demise of Scans is—I’ve seen this term a lot—killing the golden goose. (Considering that sales have been in a steady decline for the duration of Scans’ existence, I have to observe that golden geese aren’t what they used to be. It seems less a golden goose than golden goose pate.) These fans have judged, on the publishers’ behalf, how the publishers’ property should be disseminated and distributed and marketed. And if the publishers don’t agree with it, then they are somehow uncool or evil or, at the very least, not current with the 21st Century.
Are you following that? These fans are deciding on behalf of the publishers the best way to handle the publishers’ property. It’s not enough that they believe they know the best way to handle their own property (locks on the front door, LoJacks on their cars, virus protection on their computers, etc.) They believe that they have the self-declared right to decide what is right and wrong for the publishers’ property. They believe that their vision of what constitutes theft should supersede that of whose property it truly is.
Just as John Byrne apparently believes that his vision should supersede the opinions of the book store owners whose property the books and magazines are.
So basically…every single fan who is excoriating me and condemning me and boycotting me for slights either real or imagined…
… is buying into Byrne’s BS.
Perhaps some fans should consider boycotting themselves.
PAD
• 
Mr. Sebesta, if you were truly relying on this “Scans_Daily” thing as your primary method of publicity and publication, may I note that you, perhaps, chose a poor business model. Until I happened to check into PAD’s site yesterday (to see what he’s been up to, and find out if he’s doing a Cowboy Pete Roundup of BSG lately), I’d never heard of the place. Having read the commentary, I doubt very much that I’ve missed anything.
Given some of the crap I’ve found on the shelves of my FLCS, particularly the section reserved for small-press publishers (Shanda the Panda, anyone?), I can only assume that if none of those publishers will print your stuff, this may say more about your stuff than about the comics shops. And if they will, you’re undercutting your publisher’s business model, and your own, by endorsing the practices of which I’ve read here. That’s a good way to stay a struggling small-timer.
For those who miss the “homoerotic subtext” bit, I commend your attention to superdickery.com, particularly the section entitled “Seduction of the Innocent”.
If all of the complainers are really interested in is how to have legal and free books on the internet, why aren’t they all spending this time contributing to Project Gutenberg?
Mightygodking.com » Post Topic » The Internet is like a stone rolling downhill sometimes. Says:
March 2nd, 2009 at 1:58 pm
[…] PAD isn’t letting go: […]
Can somebody explain what this is? I see these on other sites with comments sections similar to what is now being used here. It seems to be automated, but I’ve never seen one like the one above where it seems like it’s trying to be abrasive in its brief. Especially since it’s taking advantage of its target’s own site to advertise.
Can somebody explain what this is?
It’s a trackback; it’s automatically generated by site code whenever a site using a particular set of recognized piece of blogging software hyperlinks back to a given article on a blog running a similar set of recognized blogging software (Moveable Type, WordPress, Blogger, what have you).
If PAD doesn’t want trackbacks appearing, then he can adjust the options on his site’s back-end. There’s literally nothing I can do about it, since I don’t control it.
Well, which compromise would you suggest?
Obviously, that’s not for me to say (and I assume this question is directed at me, since I’m the guy who originally made the comment that’s quoted); as someone who didn’t visit Scans_Daily and doesn’t own the copyright to any comic book characters, I don’t really have a dog in this hunt. But I suppose, in the end, the copyright holders will have to decide how much of their books they’re willing to allow fans to post online as part of a conversation about said books– not just for purposes of professionally-written reviews or company-controlled promotion, but to encourage fan discussion and a general enthusiasm for the hobby.
As I said, 50% of the book– and all of the “exciting moments”– seems a bit much. But restricting scans to professional reviewers and press releases obviously doesn’t speak to this issue either– the appeal of Scans_Daily, as I said before, seemed to be that it approximated the experience of sharing and discussing comics with a group of friends. So, as I said, it would be nice to see this sort of community thrive without anyone’s property getting exploited.
Perhaps the compromise might be that the big publishers would permit temporary posts of their scanned pages, maybe a week after the comic has hit the stands? Such a policy might encourage the kind of conversations the more well-spoken Scans_Daily fans seemed to crave while also discouraging people from relying on the Internet to get the experience of reading the books without paying? I’m not sure if that’s feasible or not; like I said, I don’t really know what concerns, exactly, motivate the interested parties in this discussion. But it seemed to me that yesterday, before the conversation got completely ridiculous, there were several well-intentioned people on both sides of the argument making some decent points and trying to have a conversation in good faith. Which is why, in the end, I think Ms. Simone was right when she predicted that Scans_Daily would return in a form people would be able to agree on.
Thanks for doing a really fantastic job in describing the situation at hand. I’m sure there will be those who will still find a way to warp it to justify their reasoning.
BTW – The new look of the site is great.
Vinnie bartilucci Says:
I believe you just did a post a couple days back where you made the comment that when one touches a hot stove and experience extreme sensory input, the natural reaction is to avoid said action again.
A Mark Twain commment i sometimes use for a .sig says:
“A cat who sits on a hot stove will never sit on a hot stove again.
“She will also never sit on a cold one.”
Nytwyng Says:
I’m sure the Scans supporters will add another name to that list: “hypocrite,” attempting to tell me that I’ve done with those to actual, physical books far worse than they’ve done with their “partial” posts. The difference, of course, being exactly as you’ve spelled out in your post.
Actually, a bigger difference between S_D and you skimming a comic at the shop (and PAD’s example of Brder’s or B.Dalton) is that you didn’t take a digital camera in with you and photograph the pages and then stand outside the door showing them to anyone who was about to enter the store who wanted to look.
Jasmine Loucks Says:
The only thing that confuses me here is the note that in Borders you can relax and read comics and books before you buy them. Although overall that is true, I find it somewhat amusing to note that of all the aisles in the Borders nearest me, it’s the “Superheroes” aisle that is singled out with a sign that says “Do Not Sit.” And yet, they leave benches in the magazine section.
Well, those benches are generally (in the stores i see) in areas where they don’t block traffic, where sitting on the floor (or on the lower shelves, adding the possibility of damage to the fixtures) would tend to block the aisles – which would be in violation of fire codes, aside from the fact that impeding traffic maight hurt sales.
Miles Vorkosigan Says:
So, as stated elsewhere, you’ve got my email. Write me and let me know you’re weathering this. And give Kathleen a hug from me and the wife. Family needs to support each other, and you have ours.
Ditto. And i’ll also add that i’m sure that the rest of the Atlanta gang would say/have said the same.
And for those complaining about the width of the new format – i never checked the old format for line length, but i have checked this one.
Line length is about 75 to 85 characters, which is in the optimal line length range for easy and comfortable reading; i suspect that the old format, with a slightly larger type face had lines not too much longer; perhaps up to a hundred characters, which is pushing the envelope.
Of course, on the typical “starter” monitor, the type might be a bit small to read, and i wouldn’t mind a serif face rather than sans-, but one of those is semi-irrelevant and the other is personal, so, het….
If PAD doesn’t want trackbacks appearing, then he can adjust the options on his site’s back-end. There’s literally nothing I can do about it, since I don’t control it.
Interesting. I guess I’m not a fan of ‘trackbacking’, but it’s not my blog. 🙂 I can see where others would find it useful though.
My issue with this whole thing is, not so much on something as personal as your own comics, Mr. David, but as a whole topic of how to entice new readers into the entire form. I am young, I know the reality. No one cares about comics unless you are already reading comics.
If I just told them about what what happened in comic, they would be unimpressed and think it odd. If I showed them, they would understand and be interested. If I showed them many different Scans_Daily links with various scans across many different issues, they would understand. If they wanted to see more, they bought it, because you can’t read whole issues there.
Now that Scans Daily is gone, I’m not sure what to do. Before anyone says it, the previews publishers put out just don’t do it. They tend to cater to people who already know about the characters they are REALLY hard to sift through, and they tend to focus on the story arc, not the character. I find that people tend to want to buy stuff if they because well aquainted with a certain character and then go from there.
Also, could I remind EVERYONE that yes there has been trolling, there is also been some dissagreeing but well thought out criticisms? When Scans_Daily was taken away they acted irrationally and unfortunately said things that are not very mature, not unlike what someone would do if you called their new haircut that they really like sub-par. It is unfortuneate that Mr. David’s wife got caught up and I assure you we are very remorseful about that, but it would probably be best for everyone to ignore the name calling on BOTH sides.
Geoff, I can see what you’re saying about how this sort of proliferation is good for the little guy. But you have to also see that it’s not good for the big guy (I think you even have admitted as such).
I’m just sick of people not owning to actually doing something that someone could think is wrong. If you’re perpetuating copyright infringement, then what you’re doing is breaking the law. And as angry as people are about losing their community, it’s time for someone to acknowledge that what was going on there was going to get them shut down at some point. I sometimes do unlawful things, knowing that they are indeed, unlawful. When I do them I also expect and prepare for what will happen when/if I get caught. And no matter what my own morality is, and how it might differ from the law, I will never expect anyone else to abide by my own code of conduct. That’s absurd.
So please, can’t one person from S_D just come out and say “Yes, there were comics posted without Marvel or DC’s consent, it was against the rules of LiveJournal, Photobucket, and copyright laws, and for that we got shut down.” You can end with “I still think it sucks” or something, just please, have the sense to acknowledge that when you break the rules it’s ridiculous to expect that you’ll never get caught.
Since tragical mirth asked – google archive says the LJ community had 8000+ members and around 6000 “watchers,” which I guess are people who read the community but don’t want to sign up as a member.
The actual amount of active posters, I’m sure, was a much smaller number.
“So please, can’t one person from S_D just come out and say “Yes, there were comics posted without Marvel or DC’s consent, it was against the rules of LiveJournal, Photobucket, and copyright laws, and for that we got shut down.” You can end with “I still think it sucks” or something, just please, have the sense to acknowledge that when you break the rules it’s ridiculous to expect that you’ll never get caught.”
Oh, there are. XD They’re just not posting here, they find the atmosphere way too defensive on both sides.There have been some excellent points on what’s a good idea and what is illegal. There’s also been parallels between this and the music industry. I think what jarred everyone is that the event came without any real warning? Very shocking indeed, people tend to feel persecuted and as such lash out. Then the people take it personally, and lash right back. Horrible circle.
So please, can’t one person from S_D just come out and say “Yes, there were comics posted without Marvel or DC’s consent, it was against the rules of LiveJournal, Photobucket, and copyright laws, and for that we got shut down.”
What S_D castigators don’t seem to understand – no matter how many times this is explained – is that the vast majority of the community thought what they were doing was A-okay because it was fair use. They even set up a system of rules – which they adhered to quote strictly – in the spirit of preserving that fair use.
Now, of course it wasn’t fair use and their rules were too liberal for it to be fair use. (And no “well they should have known better,” please. I’m willing to lay odds your knowledge of copyright law is about as solid as theirs was.) But they didn’t know that at the time – erroneous assumptions on the part of the community’s originators led to erroneous belief in said originators’ authority on the part of the rest of the comm.
in light of that, your request is inherently easy to ignore, because demanding that people admit to intentionally breaking the law when those people, for the most part, weren’t intentionally breaking the law? It’s not going to get much of a response.
mightygodking, I disagree. I think most of the people believed that it was fair use because they *wanted* to believe that. It’s like the five-second-rule of the internet: if you think about it, it doesn’t make sense, but everyone just agrees not to think about it.
That’s where we get the principal “Ignorantia juris non excusat.” Which means “ignorance of the law does not excuse.”
Even putting aside prior knowledge, there would still be less contention if everyone acknowledged that the excessive sampling was what caused Literotica to shut down Scans Daily. A lot of people get that and I appreciate them, but if everyone did then there would be less anger on both sides.
I keep hearing this, but Literotica did not make the decision to close scans_daily.
Scans_daily has never been, nor was, related to, supported by or provided by Literotica.
The first time I see it, it’s amusing as somebody getting their wires crossed.
After that… less amusing because I think you actually believe it.
Not to get sidetracked too badly by the book store analogy used, but given the returnable nature of book store product (by the stores to the distributor/publisher), I don’t really know whether it is 100% accurate to say it is their product to let people read freely, either.
That still doesn’t give me any say in the matter, though.
You’re right, I don’t understand copyright law. But if I were to make strict rules for using a comic-sampling forum to make sure that all of the sampling could be applied as “fair use,” you better bet that I would check the copyright law OR swallow my lumps when someone pointed out that it wasn’t.
“What S_D castigators don’t seem to understand – no matter how many times this is explained – is that the vast majority of the community thought what they were doing was A-okay because it was fair use. They even set up a system of rules – which they adhered to quote strictly – in the spirit of preserving that fair use.”
What those praising S_D don’t seem to understand – no matter how many times this is explained – is that it doesn’t matter whether they THOUGHT they were violating copyright or not. It matters that they WERE violating copyright. It, also, matters that they appear to not have tried to check with the copyright holders on how they felt about the usage, which means their ignorance was from lack of effort.
stubble – OK, I’m confuzzled. I haven’t seen anyone reference Literotica in any way whatsoever, least of all saying they got Scans Daily shut down. Plenty of people have said that about *LiveJournal*, but that’s nowhere remotely near the same thing.
That’s where we get the principal “Ignorantia juris non excusat.” Which means “ignorance of the law does not excuse.”
It does? Wow. I thought it meant, “Please excuse me from jury duty because I’m ignorant.” No wonder the lawyer who was questioning me looked at me funny.
Personally I’m skeptical as to how much people didn’t know it wasn’t fair use considering the vast number of people who are saying basically, “Sure it was copyright violation but Peter David spoiled our fun.”
You know what? When I was asked if I had something to do with it, I could have lied. I could have said to the LJ people, “Nope. Wasn’t me.” Marvel sure wouldn’t have said that I contacted them. It would have been just another occasion of Live Journal firebombing a site. There might have been suspicions, but nothing concrete. Certainly not enough to cause a hate campaign to commence.
But I didn’t do that. Instead I answered honestly.
In the final analysis, perhaps that was my mistake.
PAD
Look at post 61 on this very page.
It isn’t the first time that somebody on this blog has said that Literotica shut down LJ.
Michael– You need to read more closely. There have been at least two that I’ve noticed, including comment #61 of this thread. I assumed it was just an honest mistake, but stubbleupdate didn’t mistype when he wrote “Literotica.”
That actually brings up an interesting point– could we maybe shift this discussion towards a conversation about pørņ? That’s something people tend to agree on…
“So please, can’t one person from S_D just come out and say “Yes, there were comics posted without Marvel or DC’s consent, it was against the rules of LiveJournal, Photobucket, and copyright laws, and for that we got shut down.””
Hi there, Jasmine. I was only barely a member of S_D, but I probably still count well enough.
There was never any malicious intent to S_D, but yes, they broke copyright law. There’s a reason so many people talking about it say “Well, no surprise it finally happened…”
S_D tried to dance on the razor’s edge of Fair Use, but all too often failed.
Do I believe a similar community, with better informed and stricter rules, dedicated to education and discussion about comics, could exist under Fair Use? Absolutely. Comics are a visual medium, and it makes sense that fans would gravitate towards sharing and expressing ideas about them where there is visual content as well – the trick is in keeping the discussion examples just that, parts of a discussion instead of a potential replacement for buying the comic.
I don’t think the base ideal was faulty – merely the implementation. Which yes, as you requested – I will admit was not legal.
You will find that many, many former S_D readers feel the same way. However they are unlikely to be posting about it places like here.
“In the final analysis, perhaps that was my mistake.”
Mm, I agree. Because while there would have been bad feelings around, it wouldn’t have been fully directed at any one place which would have saved all of us from getting personal issues involved.
Of course this post probably won’t go through because none of them have.
Well, that’s just dámņ bizarre, and yeah, probably a typo (although how the hëll one conflates those two things, I probably don’t want to know).
That’s a shame. Because they might overwhelm through sheer numbers the people who are showing up here claiming it’s all my fault and that they’re going to stop buying anything I ever write.
PAD
Honestly, I love online communities and websites dedicated to comics. That’s why I read PAD’s blog, and visit with other comic related blogs and websites like Gone & Forgotten, Superdickery, and Comicmix. I don’t think that having a community dedicated to sharing a love of comics is difficult at all, but it’s pretty clear to me that what all of these places have in common is that they never tend to post anything more than one page of a book directly. If you don’t understand the laws of copyright and fair use it makes sense to err on the side of caution.
Whine whine whine. Bìŧçh bìŧçh bìŧçh. Complain complain complain. Morality, THE LAW IS ON MY SIDE, geese.
Usual internet timewasting. S_D hasn’t vanished into the ether. Full torrents of comics are still easily available. Really the only net effect of this whole thing is now everyone hates PAD. That’s pretty awesome to me, because I’m a troll. But I bet a lot of people are displeased by this.
Newsflash. “Laws” are not really useful. The internet allows us to simply “be” in a different country if the one we’re in doesn’t like us. Morality isn’t useful, because it’s morality. Writing childish blog entries in which you defend your own fûçkûpš with more fûçkûpš isn’t useful, obviously.
No one or thing has any rights beyond those which are enforced. S_D might have “violated copyright law” but so what? What can anyone actually do about it? Really? The answer is god dámņëd nothing.
The only thing about the communites is.. they’re for people who already know and understand comics to a certain extent. Have you ever tried just giving a wiki link or explaining a comic to someone? They look at you like “why would anyone ever read that?” Since I find that the previews publishers give out aren’t very informitive, hard to find, and focus on an already existing story arch (people I try to get to read comics tend to actually start if I enlighten them on a character they find interesting and then go from there). Even with all the superhero movies coming out, no one really gives a dámņ about comics, and I guess what I’m really sad about is I’ve lost the only tool I had that was efficient enough to recruit people over to the dark side, so to speak.
You know what? Upon further reflection over whether the people who were posting in excess of fair use should have known or shouldn’t have known, especially considering the board’s guidelines said “no more than half”…
I keep reading that there was something like 8000 people in this community. Am I to believe that out of 8000 people…
There wasn’t one dámņëd lawyer?
No one? Not a one? Not a single lawyer who had enough familiarity with copyright law to go to the moderators and say, “You’re asking for trouble. One half of the book? No way. The first time a copyright holder complains, we’re toast.” In five years, NO ONE said that? NO ONE thought to act in a responsible way to protect this community that supposedly was beloved far and wide? I’m supposed to care about this community when members who could have staved off inevitable disaster did not?
There seems to be this notion that I have sole responsibility for the community being buried. Didn’t the community have a responsibility to keep itself alive? Eight thousand people and not a single lawyer spoke up to try and prevent it from happening? Or two or four or ten lawyers saying to each other, “We’ve got to band together and make sure our community remains safe; let’s go talk to the mods and enforce change?”
Talk about dying in a fire. My real life community has two fire brigades and a hospital. If someone does die in a fire, it’s not because no one took steps to try and prevent it. Because REAL communities think ahead and try to avoid disaster, not sit around and hope it doesn’t happen. Without an innate drive to try and protect the well being of the commonweal, you don’t have a community. You have a bunch of people sitting around talking.
PAD
It’s hard to get someone hooked, even when you’re giving it to them for free. To be quite honest I had no interest in comics until I found out PAD wrote them. Now I find that I’ve managed to surround myself with people who love comics. Don’t know how I managed to pull that one off. If someone’s going to get enthusiastic about a medium, there are better ways to pull them in. If someone can watch X-Men cartoons, “Iron Man,” and read the few digital comics they have for free on Marvel.com and not get interested in comics… well, how on earth would anyone hope to do better than that?
Thought i had posted this, but don’t see it. If it’s in moderation and thiw winds up as a double post, please delete one.
Craig J. Ries Says:
March 2nd, 2009 at 3:19 pm
The trackback link quotes the text from the other site that the trackback link is on.
Kevin Huxford
However, the product in most comic shops – and i have never found one that objects to reasonable sampling of books to make decisions as to purchase – in not returnable. (Well, the regular comics; i’m not sure about TPBs and the like.)
Michael Says:
Someeone (i assume as a result of a brain fart) referred to Literotica in a post, and i made a joke about it in response. Maybe others picked up on it, but i haven’t noticed any who have. Not that i was looking.
I happen to think your actions with regards to Scans Daily were perfectly reasonable.
I also wish you’d just man up and act like you think so too.
Seriously, enough with the boo hoo hoo, some people don’t like me, they just don’t understand. And this repeated blather about how photobucket turned them off before anything you did had any effect? You sound pathetic – you want to justify your actions but insist they were irrelevant to the outcome.
I love your work but you sound like a child. If you think you’re right then act like it. If you’re willing to discuss other views, then do so rather then endless repeating your assertions that you were correct. If you’ve changed your mind then say so.
But this thing you’re doing now? Over and over again in the comments? It smells of desperation and it’s pathetic.
“That is hilarious. It says “Don’t sit” and so they kneel, and then complain about it besides.
I suppose the smart thing to do would have been to put up a sign that read, “Please Don’t Block the Aisles.” That way the intent is clear, rather than people figuring it’s okay if they block the aisles as long as they’re doing it in a crouch or something. They might want to add “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies” while they’re at it.”
Reminds me of the some of the apparently necessary signs at my gym, which include: “Don’t spit in the water fountain.”
The fact you have to have a sign like this really tells me alot about common sense and courtesy.
That’s a shame. Because they might overwhelm through sheer numbers the people who are showing up here claiming it’s all my fault and that they’re going to stop buying anything I ever write.
Just because I’m the sort to be anal, I went back and reread the thread. Out of 518 comments on that post, I counted 27 that could be construed as an obvious insult to you or a threat that the person was going to stop buying your work. So less than five percent of all replies were mean to you. They were easily outnumbered by both s_d supporters saying directly to them “get off my side” and s_d posters saying to you “look, I understand what you did, but it still sucks.”
(They were also wildly outnumbered by people writing insulting, hostile and condescending comments who happened to support your position on the matter, but I note you’re not too torn up over those.)
If your complaint is that people aren’t coming here to engage you in honest debate, you might want to start by, you know, providing honest debate, rather than by conflating the majority who tried to engage you honestly – and who, incidentally, you mostly ignored – with the small minority of rabid áššhølëš.
I keep reading that there was something like 8000 people in this community. Am I to believe that out of 8000 people…
There wasn’t one dámņëd lawyer?
I’m finishing up my law degree right now, coincidentally enough (although I stopped being a regular part of the community when I left Livejournal just before I started law school), and it’s not shocking to me at all; Livejournal’s active nerd base skews A) young and B) artistic. It’s a little unusual, maybe, given the general rules of large numbers, but only slightly improbable.
And of course, even if there was “one dámņëd lawyer,” it would have to be one with some level of expertise in intellectual property law. My classmates who have no interest in intellectual property law can barely tell the difference between trademark and copyright, much less have any idea about what constitutes fair use. And why should they? It’s not heavily featured on the bar exam and they’re not going to practice in it, so…
(In turn, I don’t know šhìŧ about securities law. There’s a whole lot of areas of law, and just because somebody is a lawyer doesn’t mean they know a lot about every one of them – quite the opposite.)
Talk about dying in a fire. My real life community has two fire brigades and a hospital. If someone does die in a fire, it’s not because no one took steps to try and prevent it. Because REAL communities think ahead and try to avoid disaster, not sit around and hope it doesn’t happen. Without an innate drive to try and protect the well being of the commonweal, you don’t have a community. You have a bunch of people sitting around talking.
Your metaphor is funny but you’ve applied it inaccurately, because there was an innate drive to try and protect the well-being of the community – that’s why it was moderated, that’s why both the moderators and users generally tried to make sure that the community’s rules were followed. That those rules were legally insufficient doesn’t mean that the community didn’t exist; that just means it wasn’t run well enough to survive.
There are plenty of small towns in New England where the buildings are ninety percent wood, where one big fire could destroy half the town or more with ease, which rely exclusively on volunteer fire brigades for their fire protection. Are they not “communities” just because they’re protecting their communities inefficiently, under the Peter David standard?
My venture into comics is only a few years old. I went onto a *cough*Teen Titans cartoon*cough* forum to discuss episodes and junk and one member kept on mentioning what happened in the comics. It hadn’t really ocurred to me that comics were still a functioning medium. Eventually I went onto SD and read some New Teen Titan scans and next time I was in town I bought a trade. I didn’t really like it. But while I was at SD I discovered different characters that I DID like and bought a lot next time I was in a few months later.
Oh jeeze, that was a bit long. I wouldn’t post it here, but even though PAD isn’t th real reason for the shut down (someone out there over reacted and blanket banned because they DIDN’T UNDERSTAND THE NATURE OF IT ALL.)
@PAD It’s probably not a good idea to attack the sense of community like that. It’s entirely possible there were lawyers around but I personally have only seen one person who’s in the study of it. I truly believe this, like what’s happening in the music industry, is a case of where the interests of the people at large are not being represented by the laws. We’re not bad people for breaking the law, nor are the people who have been trolling this blog even though they acted like TWÃTS. They feel persecuted, and on the internet when people get defensive and they are under the anonomity of the internet… things get a little messy. Humans tend to act irrationally, we just have to ignore them and view the more fair criticisms and support.
Anyways, I honestly mean no disrespect, I am just trying to elaborate on why people may be acting stupidly and get my point across. I can see points on your side, and points on mine, Oh! Question, would you have minded if we had just taken down posts of your items and left the rest up? IF SD rebuilds it would be nice to know. XD
Sorry guys, I meant to type LiveJournal. Mea culpa.
I happen to think your actions with regards to Scans Daily were perfectly reasonable. I also wish you’d just man up and act like you think so too
I do. I wasn’t aware my willingness to discuss it somehow implied that I wasn’t.
Just because I’m the sort to be anal, I went back and reread the thread. Out of 518 comments on that post, I counted 27 that could be construed as an obvious insult to you or a threat that the person was going to stop buying your work. So less than five percent of all replies were mean to you. They were easily outnumbered by both s_d supporters saying directly to them “get off my side” and s_d posters saying to you “look, I understand what you did, but it still sucks.
Really? Cool. When you’re inside your own head (not to mention becoming the internet-wide punching bag du jour) it can kind of skew your perceptions.
There are plenty of small towns in New England where the buildings are ninety percent wood, where one big fire could destroy half the town or more with ease, which rely exclusively on volunteer fire brigades for their fire protection. Are they not “communities” just because they’re protecting their communities inefficiently, under the Peter David standard?
Considering our two fire brigades are also volunteer, I think you just proved my point, actually.
PAD
Reminds me of the some of the apparently necessary signs at my gym, which include: “Don’t spit in the water fountain.”
The fact you have to have a sign like this really tells me alot about common sense and courtesy.
If it were anywhere else other than a gym, I’d agree.
Here’s the thing: I remember when I was taking gym in high school, the coaches would insist that if we were thirsty, we do EXACTLY that: spit in the fountain. Rather than take a drink of water, we were supposed to take a mouth full of water, rinse it around in our cheeks, then spit it back out. They said they didn’t want us to get slowed down or get cramps from having too much water in our stomachs. I have no idea if that’s what would actually happen, but that’s what they said.
So now you’re in a grown up gym, and there are young guys coming in whose high school or college coaches may be telling them the exact same thing. So it’s learned behavior. Except in the gym you’ve got the Board of Health going, “Uh…no.” Hence the signs.
PAD
(let’s call it Byrne’s Book Store, or Byrne’s BS for short)
Okay, that’s a good one. The JB Forum should be some funny reading by tomorrow. Other than that…
People are sending Kath threatening emails? Kath?!?
Seriously, some of you really need to get a life.
Considering our two fire brigades are also volunteer, I think you just proved my point, actually.
Although this metaphor is starting to sag because we’re stretching it so far, the question is how effective those brigades are. Has there been a really devastating, potential-to-burn-down-the-town fire yet? Because if there hasn’t been, you don’t actually know how good your fire brigades are – just as s_d didn’t know how effective their attempts at “fair use” are.
And even if there was such a fire, that doesn’t prove your point, because there are still plenty of small towns with insufficient fire protection that think they’re covered. But they’re still communities.
(One of my best friends is a firefighter. Big-city firefighters tend to look upon volunteer brigades as well-meaning dopes.)
“‘Laws’ are not really useful.”
Spoken like someone who’s never been mugged.
I’d like to chime up and second Kaete. S_D was walking the wire; while there were posts that fell into the category of fair use, there were also plenty that fell into the category of copyright violation. I’m sad to see it go, but I really don’t think you did anything wrong.
I’m relatively new to the “disposable income” gig and am just getting into comics, so I haven’t read any of your runs (yet). Your original fiction and novelizations, on the other hand, I’ve been a fan of for many years. Not to mention Space Cases. I’m not going to change my opinion or stop buying your books because of some people’s misplaced Internet rage.
Question, would you have minded if we had just taken down posts of your items and left the rest up? IF SD rebuilds it would be nice to know. XD
Of course I wouldn’t mind. As long as it falls within fair use, why would I mind? Hëll, I still want to see the homoerotic YJ panels. Furthermore, even if I *had* minded, in the case of X-Factor, it would have been irrelevant. It’s whether Marvel minds that counts since they hold the copyright.
For that matter, if it’s material over which I control the copyright and someone wants to post more than is typically allowed for fair use, all they need to do is come to me and say, “This is what I’d like to do.” And I’d be happy to work with them to make it happen.
PAD
<< If it were anywhere else other than a gym, I’d agree.
Here’s the thing: I remember when I was taking gym in high school, the coaches would insist that if we were thirsty, we do EXACTLY that: spit in the fountain. Rather than take a drink of water, we were supposed to take a mouth full of water, rinse it around in our cheeks, then spit it back out. They said they didn’t want us to get slowed down or get cramps from having too much water in our stomachs. I have no idea if that’s what would actually happen, but that’s what they said.
So now you’re in a grown up gym, and there are young guys coming in whose high school or college coaches may be telling them the exact same thing. So it’s learned behavior. Except in the gym you’ve got the Board of Health going, “Uh…no.” Hence the signs.
I remember Gym teachers doing that too, apparently this was a belief, (like don’t go swimming for an hour after you eat or you’ll get cramps or going outside without a cold will give you a cold), that was held and passed down for decades and was total bad science bunk. In fact any medical professional will tell you to swallow the water because otherwise you’ll get dehydrated. Does anyone remember when high school coachs used to give players salt pills, because it was better then having them drink water and getting a cramp. Not only is not better but it was a very dangerous practice that would make someone dehydrate faster, yet coachs used to regularly use this practice.
Although this metaphor is starting to sag because we’re stretching it so far, the question is how effective those brigades are.
What do you mean, “we” are stretching it. And no, that’s not the question. The question is whether members of the community anticipated a problem and took steps to try and prevent it.
And at this point, I’ve seen enough postings around the net of SD people saying, “Sure, we knew it was a copyright violation, but–” If all the people who said that had banded together, approached the mods and said, “This is wrong, we’re concerned about the community, change it,” then I suspect it would have been changed. Which indicates to me that they didn’t care enough to worry about it. So I’m supposed to have cared more than they did?
Okay.
PAD
<<>>
In that vein, I’m currently taking a graduate course on online communities and stumbled across this whole kerfluffle this week – right after we had to hold off a class discussion on copyright law and the Internet and different organizations that are trying new approaches (e.g. Creative Commons).
I’m positive we’ll be picking that discussion up in class tomorrow, so can I please quote you if it does come up? Because dámņ, you just summed up one of the major ideas that came up in discussion (and it also opens up another question for debate).
Ex: “Newsflash. “Laws” are not really useful. The internet allows us to simply “be” in a different country if the one we’re in doesn’t like us. Morality isn’t useful, because it’s morality. Writing childish blog entries in which you defend your own fûçkûpš with more fûçkûpš isn’t useful, obviously. No one or thing has any rights beyond those which are enforced. S_D might have “violated copyright law” but so what? What can anyone actually do about it? Really? The answer is god dámņëd nothing.”
Wow. I can’t stop laughing at this. I’ve read it several times, and I can’t. I can’t even tell what I like the best: the naivete, idiocy or complete incoherency. I especially like “morality isn’t useful, because it’s morality.” What the hëll does that even mean? For what it’s worth, too, not in a million years am I using this argument to try to typify the people from S-D, because I have to believe (and have seen) that lots of them can come up with more reasoned points than this.
Anyway. I think the snapshot analogy is a good one. I see no problem with going to a Borders, sipping some coffee, and leafing through one of their books for maybe 15 minutes or so, and obviously they don’t either. If I were to take pictures of those pages, however, or transcribe them, or do anything else to make that book available to me whenever I wish without paying for it, I see a big problem.
PAD,
Man up. Turtling it out and hiding in a defensive shell over “copyright” is not an accurate representation of your true attitudes given your history over spoilers. It’s not about appropriate fair use of images or copyright, but a piece to the larger puzzle that is your vendetta with “The Internets!!!” discussing your books at all.
Were you not pitching fits on places like Comic Book Resources because people were writing out detailed summaries of your issues? That they would post spoilers (in threads marked “SPOILERS!” or with appropriate spoiler tag codes)?
You carried on and on and on, lecturing people on how unseemly, how wrong, how TERRIBLE! it was for someone to take an issue of a published work, re-cap it, or mention any specific spoilers what-so-ever. And this is text — not images. You pitched a fit. “It’s MY story to tell! Not YOURS!” Over text, PAD.
And after this, you pitched a fit over online scans. I care not about scans daily, so I have no horse in that race. And, quite frankly, I agree with you about appropriate applications of fair use and copyright.
But I don’t agree with your messiah complex in characterizing this as the “IGNORANT MASSES NOT UNDERSTANDING BASIC COPYRIGHT AND FAIR USE LAWS! NOW THEY ARE AFTER MEEEEEE!” It’s a weak position. You’ve been raving about text-based descriptions, summaries, and spoilers of PUBLISHED works as though that were so unseemly well before you “discovered” Scans Daily.
I’ll make sure to get you some smelling salts for you as a Hannukah gift this year, lest you get another case of the vapors over the Internet being used as a discussion venue. Twist in the wind all you want, but seriously — man up and admit you just don’t like spoilers, it’s not just about “Scans Daily” and images, but it’s more of a pathological need to for you to rail against “spoilers” of your works — in any form — for Lord knows what reason.
I’m positive we’ll be picking that discussion up in class tomorrow, so can I please quote you if it does come up?
Sure.
PAD