A Pirate's Life for some Article by aviewaskewed, 12:59 AM 24th Apr Disclaimer: The following column is entirely the opinions of the author (even at that we aren‘t sure), any similarity to the opinions of any other staff or affiliate of theendlesscrew.com is entirely coincidental and unintentional. Unless specifically noted otherwise, all creator comments have been gleaned from other sources and no creators have actually endorsed any aspect of this column. So, I missed a week, sorry about that. To make up for it? Controversial subject matter this week!!! So something that’s caught my attention in the news the last month or so, but I’ve sort of had other thoughts or topics in the way of it, is the growing issue of piracy in comics. As we are all well aware (well, those of us who spend any great amount of time on the internet), you can download pretty much anything you want with the right program(s) and the battles over such issues (particularly involving the music industry) have been highly publicized in the news. Now comics are finding themselves into a position where they must now confront the issue of piracy, an issue that will probably only get worse before it gets better. Some reports I’m hearing place about 80% of BOTH Marvel and DC’s library of material as currently online, downloadable to anyone with the time and inclination. Now, this column is not here to promote, nor discourage piracy. Frankly, I don’t see it as my job to tell you how to run your life, piracy is illegal, no matter what kind of justifications you put on it, that is a fact. Whether you choose to be a law-abiding citizen or not is really not my concern. I am merely looking to discuss an issue that is popping up on the radar of a business we love, and looking at the pros, cons, and solutions, that companies may avail themselves of as it relates to this. Now that I think I’ve thoroughly covered my rear, let’s take a look. As I said above, it’s no secret that you can get quite a bit for free on the net. Comics now face the same problem of the music industry: Their customer base can now get their product without paying for it, and that is a situation they are going to have to deal with. Where comics benefits from having this become an issue now, is that they are able to look at specific examples of where other people in a similar situation dropped the ball, and wound up costing themselves money. Suing the fans is a bad idea, especially because comics appeal most heavily to the same demographics a lot of popular music appeals to: Teens (with comics more strictly aimed at the teen male audience), people that usually respond to restriction and censor with a raised middle finger, and a closed wallet. The music industry is still working through some of the backlash from that bad idea. Targeting and trying to shut down the services is also fruitless, because of the reasons above, yes. But also because the technology has become too widespread, and shutting down only one or two BIG services (I.E. Napster), or forcing them to go legit, simply gives a smaller service an opportunity to become big when the pirates decide that they really liked that free thing, and will go elsewhere to keep it going. The only feasible way to try and curb it, is to try and make cheap alternatives available, while trying to quietly shut these companies down with a minimum of fuss. Marvel has begun to solicit fan opinion on how best to implement an online service, which I cannot applaud Marvel for enough. They’ve taken a lot of flak from me in this column, and in the news section for many decisions I feel were poor creatively, or financially, but this is a smart move. Not only will they be implementing a way to curb piracy, but the fans will have a hand in creating it, which can only serve to help it’s acceptance (since they could tout it as “for the fans, by the fans”). DC is not going to attempt such a system from what I‘m hearing, the reason being they feel it would be too difficult to secure the digital rights to the comics in their library (which I guess I can see, they’re being sued and have been sued, over several characters in the past that are simply being published in the standard comics format…the digital arena could open new headaches legally). I think this may also have to do with DC feeling that while a substantial amount of their library is online, they DO have quite a bit of it also in print. Which leads me to the point of what I honestly think would tempt a comics fan to pirate. Simple put? Lack of availability. Comics are a periodicals business, it’s magazine format, and for a lot of years? It was hard, if not sometimes impossible, to track old stuff down. This is probably in part why the Trade Paperback market has been very lucrative for most companies during this current “renaissance” of interest, because you can get recently published, and long out of print material just as easily (if not more so) then the current monthly issues. Still, the trades don’t always come cheap (a comics paperback averages at it’s lowest that I see, about 10 bucks, your average paperback novel is between 7 and 8 bucks), and some people may not be able to truly get what they want. This is where piracy can begin to fill the holes, and why publishers need to truly think of cheap solutions to put comics into the hands of their customers. Look, most real fans know piracy is bad for the comics business, they know that taking money out of publishers pockets can mean the death of some of the titles they currently enjoy (well, unless it’s some franchise type character anyway), and I don’t necessarily see this as anything like a widespread, crippling problem to the industry. But as kids get things more and more from the net, and people realize that the material is out there if they’re willing to break the law and grab it, it’s an issue that EVERY publisher is going to have to deal with soon. We now live in a world where anyone with a scanner and a file sharing program can start costing companies money. Marvel and DC can take some hit from that, perhaps they may even rationalize it as a way for people to sample their product, and then they’ll come back and buy it for real (which really isn’t going to work, and I can’t imagine anyone in their offices being that dumb), but for smaller companies? Depending on how much of their product gets online, a difficult industry to make money in just became even more difficult, if not outright impossible. Piracy is a crime. But as I said, it is not for me to tell you how to live your life. I would however suggest that if you consider yourself a true fan of comics, and making sure they stick around for the long term, you make sure to PAY for every book you get. It’s going to be very interesting to see how these little kinks change the industry we all know and love. Back to Rants