Popular Comics Tracker Threatened with Legal Action

[Tadhg]

I wonder if Amazon's new Kindel eBook reader could be used for eComics.

4 bit grey-scale says unlikely.

[Typo Lad]

4 bit grey-scale says unlikely.

It's only 4 bit?

Maybe down the line.

[Tadhg]

It's only 4 bit?

Maybe down the line.

It's eInk. There are no color displays using the technology yet.

[Brandon Hanvey]

True. Although I think it matters slightly less for comics, just because of the format itself. They are hard to read on smaller screens. They should look into a more permanent format as well, because it does make the thing hard to use on airplanes, but I actually like the library subscription format.

Part of the problem is most comics are vertical format and computer screens are horizontal so you can not get the whole page on a screen at a easy to read size. You have to only show part of the page and scroll around.

I wonder if Amazon's new Kindel eBook reader could be used for eComics.

Like Sony's eReader, it has potential, but it is just not a a level (ie color and price) where most people would use it.

[Serik]

I wonder if Amazon's new Kindel eBook reader could be used for eComics.

No it can't, which is a shame, considering the device looks like something straight out of some crappy 1960s sci-fi comic about THE FUTURE and flying cars...

[dmso12]

Oddly, though? "Me, My, Mine" is the same argument provided by downloaders.

I want this.
I don't want to pay the market price for this.
I don't believe in the current system in place, so I will circumvent it so I can have this thing that I want.
I deserve my comics that feature men in tights punching one another to solve problems.
I need these because they make me happy.

Even if, for some people, it's a form of protest, what kind of protest is it? When someone goes on a hunger strike, they deprive themselves of food to make a point. When someone protests the market forces driving the comic book industry by downloading comics, they still get the entertainment that they seem to be starving for--in essence, they've given up nothing but the tangible.

I think I made some "i" statements, but really only concerning the "I" want to be able to read my comics offline because I often go out into the middle of nowhere at the whims of my molluscan masters. Can't be lugging around the full TPB collection that I will voraciously read in one night, but I can't connect to the internet either. Perhaps some sort of Steam-like distribution service that validates your purchase, keeps track of the serials #s? Like I said in earlier posts, give me an iComics store and I'll go nuts, because I can do the same thing that I've been doing without having to go back, find the books, and buy them (in my own defense I've mailed artists money when their stuff was out of print). That doesn't change the fact that I illegally downloaded. There, I said it for those of you tuning in late. And yes, I've even read things and then not paid for them because they stank, but more than not I don't have the time for bad books so if I don't like it within a few pages I generally tune out. Just like in the bookstore - I read a couple of issues of the new Onslaught cover to cover and put them back because it stank, was ugly, and I didn't want it - yes downloading is illegal, but the content was transmitted through my eyes in the same manner in a bookstore or from a download.

Nothing about my downloads have been about protest - and I appreciate you guys and gals not totally trashing me like you did Percy - it's rather been that downloading allowed me to re-enter a market I could not otherwise discover because of where I live, etc. But as to the whole "I" thing, isn't that how successful ventures develop? By listening to what the consumer wants, and by meeting them as close as possible? Even iTunes eventually dropped most of its DRM business (which I've never really had a problem with, but then again I was a musician and regularly didn't make money off of the music I recorded). I totally agree that the "I" as protest and justification for downloading is hollow - true protest should be abstinence (e.g. vote with your dollar and with word of mouth, not by consuming the same thing without paying for it). And really, I've always been amazed that boobs are inked in remarkable clarity but those guys in tights - my wife complains that she never gets to see the goods.

Finally, it is no one's RIGHT to read comics, it's a privilege purchased or granted by the creator or owner. That's what the people who walk in and say "the current system sucks so I steal" need to understand (and I acknowledge this point as well).

I regret that things have worked out as they have, but I'm not sorry that, for example, I read the entire Sandman run digitally and then bought all the books (and got someone else to as well). Would I be held accountable in a court of law for uploading (seeding?) Yep. Did I rip the producers off? Nope. I don't profess to be the norm or to speak for others who download scans, but I will say that many of the people I know do in fact buy what they like for the very same reasons - a dollar bill (or Euro, etc) is a vote to a company.

[Jonah Weiland]

The Z-Cult FM story continues to unfold. Today, they announced they'll remove all Marvel torrents in seven days and have adopted a 30 Day policy for new DC torrents for the time being.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/ne...m.cgi?id=12463

[Ed Cunard]

[. . .]and I appreciate you guys and gals not totally trashing me like you did Percy[. . .]

The difference is that you post well-thought, cogent points.

[Donald M.]

Nothing about my downloads have been about protest - and I appreciate you guys and gals not totally trashing me like you did Percy - it's rather been that downloading allowed me to re-enter a market I could not otherwise discover because of where I live, etc.

Well, it's not the downloading so much that people here are responding to negatively - it exists, it's not going away - as the labyrinthine twists of logic some have employed in an effort to justify their downloading.

I can muster some respect for someone who admits they download though they know it's wrong on some level.

Those who claim to do it as a form of protest or in an effort to force the medium to adapt? Not so much.

Slow as it is to do so, I think the comics industry is well aware of the need to adapt to meet the advancement of technology and the new distribution methods this opens to them.

[Brandon Hanvey]

What I'd like to know is when does someone who has downloaded a scan of a comic decide to buy the actually comic?

Is it that you like what you read? Want it is a easier to read format? Want a more portable version? Want to support the creators?

[J. Robb]

I've never heard anyone in real life (as in, not online) say they download as a form of protest, or any similar excuse. People download because they can.

It's quicker, more efficient, and infinitely cheaper than the old methods. Which is why it's not going away.

[SpaceBooger]

What I'd like to know is when does someone who has downloaded a scan of a comic decide to buy the actually comic?

Is it that you like what you read? Want it is a easier to read format? Want a more portable version? Want to support the creators?

one would assume they would want an easier to read format and more portable.

I buy single issues of comics I want "now", i buy trades of comics I want the "whole story", and sometimes i buy both because I want to share them at a later date.

[Kid Kamikaze10]

Honestly, to solve this problem, all Marvel and DC have to do is research the methods of these digital comics and comic scan programs, and find a way to make profit off of them by showing them on the internet. No, not on a .cbr file (cause then the theifs will still be able to distribute them), but on the internet.

Heck, use the format done for the Heroes comics, or the Smokin' Aces comics.

Cause lord knows that the scan products are WAYYY better than that digital crap Marvel uses.

[Rio_de_Janeiro]

this is the point-of-view of a person in brazil:

first of all, not all american and/or global and/or indie comics get published/translated here in my country. granted, panini cornering the market has actually augmented the number of things published here, but it's mostly a wider circle of the same. so, for me to be able to read comics from the golden or silver or even rarer issues from the recent past, it is virtually impossible to do so without its being virtual.

in the states and other countries, where the comics market is big and old, it's easier to find quarter or dollar bins...or comics in libraries and in car boot sales. we don't have this here. we don't get collected editions or mega super big colour-less editions with all those gems from the past.

AND your money (despite it's current fall) is still worth 1.7 times ours.

this is what i don't do: i don't download current comics; those, i buy (either in portuguese -- the ones i don't REALLY follow -- because they are published here and are cheaper...or by importing (the real wonderful ones which i follow monthly)..........i sometimes buy tpb's as i plan on doing with countdown.... and i buy the artistic graphic novels).

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one consideration to try to further this discussion, or maybe complicate it: the object which we are discussing itself.

while being a good, a commodity to buy and sell, produced massively in industrial proportions, by "factories" of workers who churn out the product...it has an artistic and aesthetic side to it. And, to what point can art be mercantilized to that point?

i understand authors and artists need to make a living, but aren't people entitled to artistic pleasure and isn't art a facilitator for the betterment of man? shouldn't all comics lovers be working hard to popularize the medium itself (which is shrinking as a market force and becoming basically a base for the launching of new tv and film franchises)?

should this medium be so massively dominated by such few companies and their exclusive desire for profit?

i would be more vocally anti-torrenting if the digital model were: our big writers and artists making their comics for the companies who were selling them digitally and cheap. that way i'd be able do buy/download older and rarer marvel-dc stuff for down-to-earth prices.

cheers,
rio

[Brandon Hanvey]

There are places such as http://www.pullboxonline.com/ and http://eyemelt.com/ which offer comics in pdf and cbz/cbr formats for purchase.

I think Marvel partially went with the flash based subscription method because it is "easier". With a subscription method you only have to charge each user either once a month or once a year. The pay per download method can be costly in terms of credit card fees and bandwidth fees.

The flash method also frees them up from having to deal with DMR since the user doesn't get a file of the material.