Publishing Links 4-9-09 UPDATE
on April 9th, 2009France cracks down on piracy. One step closer to the Three Strikes Law. Info from The New York Times and The Telegraph UK.
If a user made another illegal download within three months, a second warning would be sent by certified mail. If a third infraction occurred within a year, the service provider would be required to sever service.
Piracy costs the film and music industry in France at least 1 billion euros, or $1.3 billion, a year in lost sales, according to industry figures.
UPDATE: French vote AGAINST. And more HERE.
New laws to combat internet piracy make drastic cuts in internet traffic:”Internet traffic in Sweden fell by 33%…”
Pirates hope to combat anti-piracy laws with their very own political party.
A wacky lawyer uses odd tactics to make his point about file sharing. This behavior appears to be a tactic to get the lawyer lots of attention, but I don’t see how it is going to do his client a damned bit of good.
A consumer group protests the Google/ Writers Guild Settlement:
The most favored clause should be eliminated to remove barriers to entry, the letter states, adding that “it is inappropriate for the resolution of a class action lawsuit to effectively create an anti-compete clause.”
The LA Times on those naughty cartoons by the co-creator of Superman. The exhibit included a live demonstration of ladies whipping people.
The BBC on life without political cartoons.
Noble Gryffindor Aurors find pot farm in Slytherin Student’s crib.
Drug squad officers swooped on 19-year-old Jamie Waylett — famed as bullying Hogwarts School pupil Vincent Crabbe in the wizard movies — after a tip-off.
Lifted off of the comment thread of a copyleftist website. Which won’t get a penny from me:
Artists have no more inherent right to make money with their creative output than anyone else.
Discuss.
c
Really interesting links today, Colleen!
But THIS —
“Artists have no more inherent right to make money with their creative output than anyone else.”
WHAT THE F—-? (Pardon me, I don’t use that usually, but really!)
The logic of that totally defies me!
“No more inherent right”? “Than anyone else”? What? What?
Is the speaker trying to say that if EVERYONE ELSE cannot make money off a creation any way they want, that the CREATOR of the item has no right to do so either? Yeah, that lasts about as long as they are the “everyone else” and NOT the “creator”.
But… the writer can not be serious about saying that a person has NO right to make money off their own work!
I am staggered. Boggled. Flabberghasted. And would like to go punch that person in the nose for stupidity.
“Artists have no more inherent right to make money with their creative output than anyone else.”
Technically true, if for no other reason than the reverse of that statement- that artists have more inherent right- would be obviously ludicrous.
There, of course, is a hint of class arrogance in that statement- how DARE an artist try to stop my downloading his/her work just so he/she can make some filthy lucre.
I don’t have a problem supporting the Pirate Party in Sweden if an adjunct came to life in the US. After seeing an RIAA/MPAA squad in action acting as if they were appointed policemen, I’m scared that the entertainment industry could strip legitimate civil rights from me to further their agenda. Those groups have proven inept at stopping internet piracy, and their actions have hurt people that weren’t engaged in piracy.
As for failing newspapers…I really want to sympathize with the papers, but having seen so many local papers gutting features I’d care about- local coverage, comics, intelligent editorials- I have to wonder how much of the damage was self-inflicted. Should newspapers have more inherent rights to make money with their output than anyone else?
Since the pirate party wants to limit copyrights to five years and to do away with patents entirely, I’m afraid I’d have to oppose you, Ray.
Because I would have lost all copyright in the beginning of A Distant Soil before I ever got near the end. And would have no way to make money off the beginning to finance the end. As if making money on creative work weren’t already difficult enough.
Since copyright is federal law, and since major copyright violation is a felony, people shouldn’t be surprised when major copyright violators are treated like criminals. Because, you know, it’s a crime.
I only buy my small local paper. National papers I read online.
My previous post on this subject, which included a quote from Ray:
http://adistantsoil.com/2009/03/20/felony-copyright-violation/comment-page-1/
Technically true, if for no other reason than the reverse of that statement- that artists have more inherent right- would be obviously ludicrous.
I don’t understand how the first statement is “technically true,” nor how its reverse is “inherently ludicrous.” Would you mind clarifying what you mean by that?
Pardon me — you used the phrase “obviously ludicrous,” not “inherently ludicrous.” I had “inherent” on the brain because the word was part of the original statement being discussed.
And I strongly disagree with you on the meaning of the statement Ray. Yes, artists DO have more of a right to make money on their creative output than the person who did not create the output.
People who did not create the output can easily manufacture reproductions, sell derivative works and advertising from use of that work while the creator gets nothing from any of that.
That’s fair how?
I have more of a right to live in the house I built and paid for than others do. How arrogant of me! I have more of a right to make money on my book than others do. How selfish! I have more of a right to eat the food on the land I farm than others do. What a pig I am!
There are folk out there who believe — and I’ve had it said to me — that “property is theft.” Which I take to mean that everything ought to belong to everybody.
Or something.
“Property is theft” only if you believe that YOU have the right to access everything YOU want when you want to. Such people very rarely enjoy it when OTHER people want what the “non-property believer” has in his possession.
If everyone else just as much right to make money off my work, then I have the right to expect them to feed me, pay for my gas. I wouldn’t have to pay for food in a restaurant (because the cook has no more inherent right to be paid than I do). And waiters? Forget it!
Why is it that people make statements like that and apply it ONLY to “creative” WORK? Ray, if you go down that road, what is “obvious” is that even you would not get paid for whatever YOUR job is.
The *inherent* right to be paid for creative work lies in the fact that the object (be it music, a book, or a painting) would simply NOT EXIST but for the artist.
Unless one rejects capitalism in its entirety (and I most certainly don’t), the idea that an artist has no more inherent right to profit from his or her creations than anyone else is patently absurd on its face. In fact, an artist is the only one with an inherent right to profit from what he or she creates. An artist can give someone else the right to profit from his or her creation, but in that case the right of the non-creator is derived solely from an agreement with the creator. The non-creator’s rights are not inherent.
People who did not create the output can easily manufacture reproductions, sell derivative works and advertising from use of that work while the creator gets nothing from any of that.
At Peter David’s blog, someone who claims to hail from Russia (I have no reason to doubt him but also can’t verify his claim) has repeatedly advanced a vision of a world in which artists make their work freely available on the web and work for tips. He eventually wants to see corporations, which he views as inherently corrupt and evil, go the way of the dodo. He has acknowledged that that may be bad for the artist, but believes it may be good for the art.
Whatever that means.
Peter David said it best in a reply to this person, when he surmised that this benighted soul might feel differently if he had created something someone might consider worth stealing.
I think the problem with the whole “let’s take down the big bad corporations” mentality is that corporations can give artists access to marketing and sales resources that a single person simply cannot muster. I think the only person who can decide whether such an agreement is beneficial is the artist him or herself.
On the other hand, I’ve read about many an artist signing an agrement without understanding it and then getting screwed. The corporation may be legally in the right in such cases, but ethically and morally? I’m thinking not so much.
“At Peter David’s blog, someone who claims to hail from Russia (I have no reason to doubt him but also can’t verify his claim) has repeatedly advanced a vision of a world in which artists make their work freely available on the web and work for tips. He eventually wants to see corporations, which he views as inherently corrupt and evil, go the way of the dodo. He has acknowledged that that may be bad for the artist, but believes it may be good for the art.”
Believe it or not, I increasingly encounter seemingly sane people who espouse this view. They are self-described ‘progressives.’ It’s the ideology of ‘anti-corporatism’ mixed together with what Andrew Keen has perceptively called ‘digital utopianism,’ and there’s nothing progressive about it.
I applaud Scribblerworks’ response above.
I may have simply misinterpreted Ray’s position, and if that is the case, I deeply apologize.
But one of the arguments frequently made against copyright is that it is a special set of laws for a special industry, and it is all so unfair. Royalties and reuse is not paid for other product.
This is imply untrue.
First off, there are special laws, rules, and standards for EVERY industry. Because every industry is different and comparing publishing to, say plumbing is comparing apples to kumquats.
I have a farm. We have to follow rules and regulations that apply to us that do not apply to others. EVERY industry has special laws, rules, and ways to make money.
Creators are not the only people who get royalties, either. The most obvious example of another industry that pays royalties would be the oil industry. If I own an oil well, I get royalties.
Moreover – speaking of special laws – oil wells get royalties, but royalties on that income are not subject to social security tax. Which means I as an author pay social security tax on my books, but an oil tycoon does not.
Oil tycoons get royalties, stockholders get dividends, but if I get a royalty, people have a problem with that?
When tangible property and intellectual property are compared, many bewail the fact that if you sell a house or chair you don’t get to keep making money on the house or chair, while an author who sells a book gets to keep making money on the book. How unfair!
And how untrue.
If I sell a house outright, and all the property to go with it, I don’t get to keep making money on the house – but it’s a sure bet I will want a hell of a lot money for that house to make the sale worthwhile. (And for those who don’t know, the sale of property may NOT include things like mining rights, so if you find gold in your back yard, it may not belong to you. No. Really.)
However, I may choose to sell a house I build, or I may choose to rent it. Or lease it. Or coop it. Or build apartments in it. Or sublet it. Or time share it. Or donate it. Or use it as business property. Or business and residential property. Or I can give it away.
As an author, I may choose to sell my work outright and the money I get with that sale is the last I will ever see.
Or I may choose to rent it or lease it, or divide up the rights and sell them one by one, or lease those, or donate it, or give it away.
I can rent out tangible property.
I can rent out my copyrights.
I can rent jewelry, or clothes, or electronic equipment, or furniture, or office space, or living space, or vacation property, or entertainment, or people’s time. I can reuse those items over and over and over again, and I get paid every time.
Just like with my copyrights.
But when I want to do that with the work I have created with my own hands, people have a problem with that.
Since authors are not paid for their time while they create the work, the only way they can be compensated for that work is for the work to be sold after it is actually created. And the only way to do that is via copyright protection, for without it, no one has any reason at all to pay the author for their efforts.
It’s not just that fans online would have the right to make free use of the work, it’s that any corporation would have the right to make any movie, sequel, t-shirt, or product they wish without consulting or compensating the author at all.
I can’t think of any rational person that believes a copyright limit of five years is in any way tenable.
Before I could even complete a project, I would have lost the rights to it. The only hope I have of a retirement is the hope that the work for which I have been paid very modestly over the course of my career will accrue more value as I get older.
And judging by the donations to this site, I would have had to PULL DOWN THE SITE LONG AGO because donations do not even come close to covering the monthly fee of running this website. The ONLY real income on this site is from the sale of original art. Advertising and micropayments on book sales are pretty modest. I fund this entire project out of my own pocket.
And I have found (as has been stated elsewhere) that t-shirts and product lines based on SF/fantasy webcomics properties do not sell as well as the joke t-shirts from comic strip webworks. So product lines based on my work, even if it were a lot more popular than it is, are unlikely to be as popular as t-shirts displaying jokes about cats.
BTW Bill, I have read many arguments that the copyleftists want to use the demise of copyright to bring down the evil capitalist West. Because the US has a GDP that is more than 40% dependent on intellectual property, what better way to bring our economy to its knees than destroying intellectual property law?
I’m not saying every copyleftist believes that, but I’ve red comments to that effect on various websites.
‘scuze the spelling and punctuation. V- tired.
BTW Bill, I have read many arguments that the copyleftists want to use the demise of copyright to bring down the evil capitalist West.
I got the feeling from this guy’s comments that he is anti-capitalist, yeah. Which is kinda funny (in a sad way) when you think about how badly Marxism has failed.
Is that what you mean by the term “copyleftist” — people who want to do away with property rights? I ask because as a liberal I am sometimes labeled a “leftist” or a “left-winger,” but I can assure you that I believe in capitalism and property rights. I’m not trying to pick a fight, and I’m not accusing you of painting with a broad brush, by the way. I’m just asking — sincerely — what you mean in order to better understand your P.O.V.
I work with people who pirate music. Their latest rationalization? The economy has “forced” them to become pirates.
Bullshit. Bright green bullshit.
The bottom line is that I think you and I are in total agreement on the subject of copyright. Creating art takes as much back-breaking work as any other profession, from picking up garbage to programming computers to running a corporation. Everyone else expects to get paid, so why shouldn’t artists? The answer of course is that they should. It’s self-evident to any reasonable person. Unfortunately, reasoning isn’t in vogue right now (and I’m not sure it ever was).
Believe it or not, I increasingly encounter seemingly sane people who espouse this view. They are self-described ‘progressives.’ It’s the ideology of ‘anti-corporatism’ mixed together with what Andrew Keen has perceptively called ‘digital utopianism,’ and there’s nothing progressive about it.
I wouldn’t call it an “ideology.” I’d call it a thinly disguised gimme mentality.
I continue to believe that a fair amount of this is also driven by envy of artists at best, and antipathy towards them at worst. The path an artist must take is different than most of us travel. I’m not saying it’s better, I’m not saying it’s worse, I’m just saying: it’s different. A lot of people don’t understand it. Me, I’ve got creative friends, some of whom do art for a living and some of whom don’t, but in every case they’re passionate about it.
Among my best friends from college was an animator. I can’t tell you how many weekends the rest of us would be hanging out playing video games and watching movies on TV while he worked slavishy on frame after frame to create short animated films. I used to marvel at his work ethic, which paid off: he was the supervising animation producer for Blue’s Clues on Nickelodeon, and is now a director (or the director, I can never keep it straight) for Backyardigans.
If anyone downloads episodes of either of those programs illegally, they’re stealing from my friend in a way that most people can’t appreciate. I can, however, because I saw firsthand how hard he worked.
Hi Bill. I did not come up with the term copyleftist. So, it is not me cranking on leftists or liberals.
The term copyleftist refers to people who are against copyright law.
Get it?
Copy RIGHT.
Copy LEFT.
It’s actually kind of cute.
I actually do back breaking work. It’s called farming. Drawing comics is harder, even when I sit down all day. So, when some jackass tries to make the argument that creative work is all just flowers and candy and kudos, I roll my eyes and do the WHATEVER.
Seriously, I can spend a day knee deep in cow shit and it is nothing compared to trying to make a living in comics.
Pirating due to poverty is not an excuse. If I can’t afford something, I don’t buy it.
And before the internet, we all managed to get along without music, and books, and other entertaining things we could not afford.
There is so much LEGAL AND FREE stuff on the internet there is no excuse for pirating.
If you can afford internet access, you can afford to buy a book. And if you can’t afford internet access, support your local library.
Just last week, someone offered me a copy of the Watchmen and Wolverine movies.
It was very tempting, but I turned it down.
Still haven’t seen Watchmen.
It’s so unfair that movie theaters are 100 miles away, I guess that would be a good excuse to pirate, eh?
No.
Get it?
Copy RIGHT.
Copy LEFT.
I get it. Thanks.
Me, I’d rather call them “copy-wrongists”. Because “copyleftist” refers to the … well, wrong “right”.
Wow, I missed out.
1. What I meant about artists was the notion that they don’t have any more right to profit from their output than any other profession has to make money on their own output. Certainly, an artist has the predominant right to make money on their own output. Anything else would be silly. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
2. Would I agree with every point made by the Pirate party? Heck no. Colleen, you gave the perfect example of why five-year copyrights would be silly.
What bothers me is that the leading lobby on intellectual rights issues happen to be the MPAA and the RIAA, and that bothers me to no end. Politics is about compromise, but when there’s only one strong voice out there, compromise is impossible.
I want a solution where U2′s manager doesn’t threaten to cut off people’s Internet connection, where the RIAA and MPAA aren’t allowed to form empowered police squads, and where some digital music vendor finally figures out that I’m willing to pay nice money for 320 kbps mp3s.
As for the notion of artists working for tips…you know, in Cory Doctorow’s book, “Down and Out In The Magic Kingdom”, there’s an outline of a system where world currency is gone, and a new currency based upon how much society respects the work you’ve done is implemented. It’s not a supplement to capitalism; it’s a replacement.
Now, that might be a wackadoo pipe-dream. But I’d argue that under that system, Colleen would be richer than any investment banker or AIG executive, and that’s not such a bad thing, is it?
Of course, the comics industry is going to have to deal with piracy issues very very soon. Not only is comics piracy going up, but with Diamond and Borders on shaky ground, it can be argued that the factors that led to the graphic novel boom of the last decade are in peril. A Diamond/Borders collapse would make the Direct Market collapse of the 90s look like a cakewalk.
And you know who’s figured that out fast? Marvel. Their digital comics intiative isn’t bad (though I hate the fonts and the crappy scans). $60 for a year of all you can read. And Marvel’s CEO gave out Kindles to some of the IT staff last year. They know what’s coming, and they’re getting ready for it.
Me, I’d rather call them “copy-wrongists”. Because “copyleftist” refers to the … well, wrong “right”.
Yeah. The term “leftist” has well-established and emotionally charged meanings. Therefore “copyleftist” invites misunderstandings. I prefer the term “anti-copyright.” It’s descriptive and accurate.
What I meant about artists was the notion that they don’t have any more right to profit from their output than any other profession has to make money on their own output.
Well, that’s true, but I don’t think the issue is artists thinking they have more rights than anyone else. It’s people who think artists have fewer rights than the rest of us. There are those who believe that a work of art belongs to everyone the moment it is created.
As for the notion of artists working for tips…you know, in Cory Doctorow’s book, “Down and Out In The Magic Kingdom”, there’s an outline of a system where world currency is gone, and a new currency based upon how much society respects the work you’ve done is implemented.
An honor system depends on people being honorable. If people were generally honorable, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Their digital comics intiative isn’t bad (though I hate the fonts and the crappy scans). $60 for a year of all you can read.
I wonder what that does to creators’ compensation. Are they getting royalties for distribution of their work online? If not, it sounds like a good deal for readers and for Marvel but a raw deal for writers and artists.
“that might be a wackadoo pipe-dream…”
Replace the word “might be” with “is”.
“Currency based upon how much society respects the work you’ve done”??! As we’ve discussed ad infinitum on the this site, a lot of people out there — possibly society as a whole — don’t respect intellectual and creative property.
Y’know Ray, I’ve been sitting here for best part of an hour writing, deleting, and re-writing a response to stuff you’ve written, but I find myself getting angrier and angrier with your views. Really, nothing I say will never make you see things differently. So… I’ll just walk away, silently hoping and praying that you never get your way.
If society as a whole respected intellectual property, there would be no need for anti-piracy laws.
I can’t live on respect. No artist can.
I think you vastly overestimate how much respect I have, actually, but thank you for the nice thought. It’s really sweet.
Great discussion thread.
(Edited for OCD repetitiveness, over and over again, like lots).
Bill: I don’t think Marvel is paying online royalties at the moment, but I was wrong when I questioned whether or not Marvel paid royalties on their GN collections. I’ve gotten a couple of modest checks over the last few months. Nothing major, but enough to pay the health insurance bills for a couple of months.
I have read that Marvel will evaluate the online pay scheme and decide later whether or not to pay royalties.
I don’t use it much, but I like the online comics. I think Marvel should have another subscription service though: a premium subscriber price for recent books.
I would gladly buy more comics if I lived near a comics shop, but cannot get to one.
I doubt most comics shops would go for it though, fearing they’d be put out of business if people could get the comics online. But since millions of comics are downloaded illegally every month, I’m not sure what effect a legal subscription service would have on comic shops.
”Internet traffic in Sweden fell by 33%…”
Yeah, I know, I was on vacation…
Allan, I think you’re somehow reading into my views something that isn’t there.
I want Colleen Doran, and all comics artists, to get paid bunches and bunches of money. Come by my house and see the boxes and boxes of comics and graphic novels and bookshelves full of graphic novels.
I love comics, and comics only happen when artists can make enough money to make them.
I recognize that a fair amount of people in society don’t respect artists- whether they be musicians, comic artists, or whatever.
I think that artists have the predominant right to make money on their work.
However, I’m not willing to surrender civil rights, give police powers to corporations, or stifle technological innovation to preserve those things.
Keep in mind that I’ve made money as a software developer, and I could use those protections myself. But I’m not willing to live in a police state just to protect my revenue stream.
Colleen- I do believe that we’ll see a premium service for new books. Look at the announcement that Bendis’s new series, Spider-Woman, will be published both online (as a motion comic) and in stores concurrently. The problem is that they can’t gut the retail market. They’re walking a fine line, as you point out.
Hey, Colleen, have you ever looked into whether or not B&W comics can be displayed on a Kindle? I’ve never used one, but they’re really popular in NYC. Maybe you can set the market. It’ll be a while before we get a color Kindle- color e-ink apparently isn’t feasible from a cost perspective- but ADS might look good on a Kindle.
I wrote an answer to this and Leechblock cut me off and lost it. Damn.
A corporation who calls the police to prosecute someone for trafficking in stolen goods is not behaving as a police state, but as anyone else would behave if they had their property rights violated.
One man’s technological innovation stifle is another man’s right to get a return on years of research and financial investment.
A state that seizes personal property for the “good of the people” is not a state that values individual rights or freedoms. Personal property is also a civil right. Intellectual property is an asset.
I don’t want to live in a police state either, which is why I oppose a state which doesn’t support personal property rights.
While nice folks like Neil Gaiman who (just today) post that the real enemy of an author is obscurity, I counter that fame has absolutely nothing to do with income. Nothing. And it has nothing to do with the quality of the work, either.
Asserting that the only (EDIT, Neil didn’t say only – my bad, he wrote that obscurity is a bigger enemy than piracy – SORRY) enemy of the author is obscurity is pablum ( which, in actuality he didn’t say, and I don’t mean to put words in Neil’s mouth, so as I go off on a tangent here, my apologies. I think I had to edit this monster three times and that’s after losing the entire content to Leechblock.)
Every author knows the publisher has to make money on their work, and Neil is more cavalier about piracy than I am.
If the publisher doesn’t make enough money from paying customers, there will be no revenue to support more books. Were Sandman (and Neil) being published for the first time today, they’d have a helluva hard time finding an artist to draw it for free on the promise that one day they’d all be popular and there’d be money later. Someone has to finance that work. Some publisher getting paid by customers who buy books.
Neil writes that online promo helps sales: absolutely true. I’ve seen it myself. But I’ve seen no increase in my sales due to pirating, only due to my promoting the book by running it online. Others may differ. (EDIT) And I think his idea is that if something is obscure it can never make money, so piracy may cost you sales from people who wouldn’t buy in the first place, but if no one knows who you are, then you won’t get sales anyway. But then, that still doesn’t make piracy OK, to my mind.
I know lots and lots of dead broke famous people (actors especially, we all know who they are, but who the hell pays you to be famous?), and many comic creators who go to HERO looking for cash because their fans love them – but no one gives you money just because they know who you are.
We all know who Neil is, and I love Neil a lot, but that won’t buy him a cup of coffee. I might buy him a cup of coffee because I love him. But I won’t buy him a place to live unless he agrees to do things for me I can’t print.
And while I agree that a little bit of pirating won’t make the world explode, a lot of pirating isn’t good for anybody except the pirates who get to rake in some dough selling advertising.
I’m already talking to folks about ways to put A Distant Soil in other tech formats. Thanks!
I must learn to edit before I hit the post button. I copy and pasted part of a private letter. Shit. I hope this all makes sense now, and I hope I haven’t been unfair to Neil. And I hope someone didn’t see what I posted before…um…Fifth edit now. Good lord. Neil, I do love you so. Smootch.
But I hate pirates. grrr.
Ray, my question is … if you don’t like the idea of the cops showing up at people’s homes because they’ve been pirating music or other works on the internet (downloading or vending other’s work to people without license), just what CONSEQUENCE should there be for the illegal action? What other punishment for breaking the law are you going to recommend over a visit from our duely appointed LAW-ENFORCEMENT officers?
Of course it is not pleasant to receive such a visitation. But why should the consequence for illegal behavior be pleasant?
Scribbler: Ray isn’t complaining about law enforcement officials carrying out their lawful duties. His concern has to do with giving “police powers” to corporations. That’s a different discussion.
Also, I don’t believe Ray is defending those who simply download songs, comics, novels, movies, etc. without paying for them. Based on his posts in this and prior threads, I think his position is that online piracy cannot be curbed, and attempts to do so are doing more harm than good. He has also stated his belief that online piracy has benefited consumers by driving down the price of CDs and music downloads, and can benefit individual artists and entertainment companies by serving as a form of viral marketing.
Ray is one of the more reasonable advocates of this point of view. I don’t think it serves any purpose to berate him for things he hasn’t said.
Ray, while I believe I understand your position (and trust that you’ll let me know if I don’t), please don’t mistake that for agreement. I very much disagree with your view.
First, I think you vastly overestimate the number of people who are willing to make a purchase after downloading pirated content they end up liking. Remember when we were discussing a site that was illegally distributing ADS, and you asked some of the people who had done so to pony up and pay Colleen? And remember how surprised you were when they offered feeble, mealy-mouthed and rather childish excuses? When it comes to consumers of pirated content, this is the norm rather than the exception.
Second, even if people are simply sampling pirated content in order to “try before they buy” (similar to browsing through a printed comic-book before buying it), they’re still contributing to the problem. Pirate sites aren’t exactly known for being discriminating about their clientele; they don’t give a crap whether you eventually pay someone else for a legal copy of something you got from them illegally. Patronizing pirate sites encourages them to continue their illegal activity at best, and at worst helps them profit from their theft if their site is advertising-supported.
Finally, based on posts of yours in a prior thread you seem to place more of the blame for this problem on entertainment companies that fail to provide online content in a user-friendly format than you do on those who distribute and/or download pirated content. This is completely ass-backwards. If people don’t get what they want from a company, it doesn’t give them the right to steal.
I fail to see how offering a subscription service for viewing online content can compete with the “competition:” pirates who are distributing the content online for free. Again, when you suggested to people who had read bootleg copies of ADS that they drop some money in Colleen’s tip jar not a single one of them ponied up. And as Colleen herself has pointed out, prior to posting pages from ADS in this blog a big chunk of ADS was available FOR FREE at the Image Comics website (at least I think that’s where it was) and people were pirating it anyway! I think that proves my point.
Piracy is theft, it damages both individual creators and entertainment companies, and there is no way to do it ethically. It does more harm than good. Attempts to regulate it may prove challenging but attempt it we must. There are laws against spousal abuse, and yet an alarming number of men beat their wives. Should we give up enforcing laws against wife-beating? Of course not. Nor should we give up the fight against online piracy.
Thanks, Bill. I stand corrected. And my apologies to Ray for going off about something he did not say.
Regarding the term “copyleftist”…
I just downloaded some opensource freeware onto my PC. To use it, I had to click a button indicating I accepted the terms of its “copyleft license.”
OK. NOW I get it.
My question about whether copyleft was a slam on liberals assumed — wrongly — that copyleft was a pejorative. Upon doing some research, I’ve learned that the term “copyleft” originated with the open-source software movement. A copyleft license gives anyone the right to reproduce, adapt, and/or distribute the software, as long as the copies or adaptations are also bound by the same copyleft licensing scheme.
As Mr. Spock would say: fascinating.
Hey, no worries. BTW, the Pirate Bay dude were just convicted of copyright infringement and sentenced to one year in jail and millions of bucks in fines. They will appeal.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/5170170/Pirate-Bay-four-jailed-for-breaking-copyright-in-Swedish-file-sharing-trial.html