Question about illegal comic book downloads

[dr chimp]

I accounted for those: more alternative entertainment, more competition, and lower barriers to entry. The studies I cited tried to be scientific: they compared piracy with no piracy, and found that piracy was either irrelevant or a small positive effect. But it's swamped by far bigger changes in the wider entertainment industries over the past 20 years.

A study in german isnt much help to be honest and the translated quote

"This, the survey claims, leads pirate site users to buy more DVDs, visit the cinema more often and on average spend more than their ‘honest’ counterparts at the box office. "

all that says is that people who pirate spend more than those that dont. It doesnt say whether they spend more than they would if they couldn't pirate. If before internet piracy they were buying 1 album a week and now they are buying 1 album a month it really isnt a help.

The idea of "try before you buy" with music is utter garbage too. Every label puts up samplers on Youtube and full tracks and online retailers have samplers from every track. We have more legal info on the product we are buying than ever before.

[tolworthy]

This argument that it's fine to compete with someone that steals your work and gives it away and it's all the same because of marginal cost is silly.

This probably isn't the best forum to discuss economics. It appears to be a touchy subject. I'm sorry if I've annoyed anyone.

The muddy low-resolution PDFs on the GIT Corp DVDs are in no way superior to what Comixology offers.

The comics I want are simply not available on Comixology, and those that are cannot be read as quickly or offline.

See, this is one pirate's self-serving, self-justifying excuse, and you're crediting it like it's a white paper from Harvard

Harvard is never self serving?

maybe because you've downloaded yourself and don't want to think you're associated with something negative

I have never downloaded. As mentioned earlier, I once asked someone to download a very old comic for me in order to check if a certain image existed, and I then deleted the file without reading it. Beyond that I bought one DVD of scans that I have also bought both in print and via GIT, and I also bought a further DVD for non-comics reasons, and destroyed it after searching for the image I needed. That's it. Unless you include my "BadTime BedTime" web site, for which I obtained permission from the rights holder, Egremont.

It appears that nobody will believe me, but my interest in piracy is purely from the industry economic perspective. And specifically because the OP contains narrowly defined situations where, it seems to me, the industry benefits. I spend a lot of time studying taxation and property rights in general (more time than I spend reading comics). But if people want to believe that all piracy is evil and that I am secretly tainted by their virus then nothing I can say will change anyone's mind.

[Plawsky]

I think his conclusion is spot on: the comic companies simply supply a far inferior product to what the pirates offer, regardless of price.

What product do pirates offer? Their "product" is just a scan of the real product. Now, maybe you like the presentation of a .cbr better than comixology's reader, but that doesn't make it okay to steal rather than buy.

And you blame piracy for all that? You don't think that an explosion in alternative entertainment, the rise of online stores, and the ability for indies to produce their own stuff had anything to do with it?

First off, online stores and indie releases certainly affected the close of physical stores, but they don't account for the drop in music sales across the board. iTunes certainly hurt physical stores more than anything else.

Secondly, just because you can't blame piracy for all of it doesn't mean it's not a huge factor. Saying that piracy wasn't a big part of the music industry's decline over the past decade is flat out wrong. The only reason anyone has to pirate anything is because they don't want to pay for it, there is no other reason, and certainly no justifiable one. "Try before you buy" has legal alternatives like youtube or paid subscription services like Rdio or Spotify which allow you to listen to the full version of almost any new release for a mere $10 a month. I don't see what possible positive effect piracy could have on music that isn't solved by newer legal methods.

[Plawsky]

It appears that nobody will believe me, but my interest in piracy is purely from the industry economic perspective. And specifically because the OP contains narrowly defined situations where, it seems to me, the industry benefits. I spend a lot of time studying taxation and property rights in general (more time than I spend reading comics). But if people want to believe that all piracy is evil and that I am secretly tainted by their virus then nothing I can say will change anyone's mind.

How does the industry benefit by someone only buying comics he likes? If I download 10 comics, but only like 5 of them, there were five comics sold and, assumedly, five per month from here on out. Or I could bite the bullet and buy all 10 (which is only an extra $15-20 if I'm buying new comics off the shelf) and not continue to buy the ones I don't like. This way, there were ten comics sold and five per month after that.

Sure, you could say the alternative would be just buying no comics at all because I didn't get a chance to try any. But that's a terrible way to treat the industry. They offer previews and cheap back issues online. Not everything should be free just because some people want it to be.

[dr chimp]

my interest in piracy is purely from the industry economic perspective. And specifically because the OP contains narrowly defined situations where, it seems to me, the industry benefits. I spend a lot of time studying taxation and property rights in general (more time than I spend reading comics). But if people want to believe that all piracy is evil and that I am secretly tainted by their virus then nothing I can say will change anyone's mind.

given that you said a couple of weeks ago "I don't know how the numbers work out. I know that some floppies sell 20k or fewer." re comic sales then I suggest you start looking at the numbers for comics and music sales first.

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

When and if the rights holders sort out their interests, they will have to find copies of the comics they want to make available--either in hard copy or download form. At such a date (which might be fifty years after we are all dead), let's hope someone has kept those comics (and/or scans of them) safe for the rights holders to publish. DC has had a devil of a time in the past putting together reprint editions as they don't have their own copies of the work. At such times they've had to hold their noses and go to the unwashed collectors for help.

[Shawn Hopkins]

This probably isn't the best forum to discuss economics. It appears to be a touchy subject. I'm sorry if I've annoyed anyone.


The comics I want are simply not available on Comixology, and those that are cannot be read as quickly or offline.


Harvard is never self serving?


I have never downloaded. As mentioned earlier, I once asked someone to download a very old comic for me in order to check if a certain image existed, and I then deleted the file without reading it. Beyond that I bought one DVD of scans that I have also bought both in print and via GIT, and I also bought a further DVD for non-comics reasons, and destroyed it after searching for the image I needed. That's it. Unless you include my "BadTime BedTime" web site, for which I obtained permission from the rights holder, Egremont.

It appears that nobody will believe me, but my interest in piracy is purely from the industry economic perspective. And specifically because the OP contains narrowly defined situations where, it seems to me, the industry benefits. I spend a lot of time studying taxation and property rights in general (more time than I spend reading comics). But if people want to believe that all piracy is evil and that I am secretly tainted by their virus then nothing I can say will change anyone's mind.

It's not that you're annoying people, it's just that anything you've put forth so far as an economic argument for overall benefit to the industry just doesn't hold up. You've presented no compelling proof and you're assuming very unlikely statistics, like the idea that 75 percent of comic downloaders are industry-positive, based on very scant evidence.

A Harvard white paper has a little more credibility than a message board post from a pirate trying to make himself look good.

Comixology does not have every issue of Fantastic Four. But the ones they do have look a lot better than GIT Corp's low-resolution scans. I own about a dozen of these sets. They're convenient and cool, but Comixology's product is simply higher quality.

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

What is the quality like for the legal scans of DC's golden age material? Having scans used in some of DC's books was quite the let down for me. One day, I might want to sell off all my books (and there's always the fear of unexpected disasters causing fire or water damage)--it would be a little comforting to know that one day I might be able to buy downloads of DC vintage comics to replace the physical copies. But I'd hate to buy really poor scans like I've seen in some of their books--or conversely revamped art like with the Neal Adams books.

[Michael P]

The comics I want are simply not available on Comixology, and those that are cannot be read as quickly or offline.

Well, you can't always get what you want. Acknowledging this is a sign of maturity.

[Ish Kabbible]

Well, you can't always get what you want. Acknowledging this is a sign of maturity.

Beautifully stated

[pakehafulla]

Wtf

Where do you live? Here in Auckland it's really more like 6 nzd, which is 5 usd. Less if your shop has good discounts.

Trades are cheap at whitcoulls if you use vouchers/deals. Mighty ape or real groovy are sometimes ok too. Or just buy online like the rest of the world. You said you'll buy the saga trade if you can find it?

http://www.bookdepository.com/Saga-1.../9781607066019
13.89 nzd. Chur bo~

Well it may surprise you to know that there is more to NZ than just Auckland. No Real Groovy here in Marton, and the prices of theirs I've seen on trade-me arent overly cheap(and always for ex-display books). Nearest Comic shop is in Palmerston North, and they cater mainly to war-gaming. Prices were from a bookshop in Wanganui, and while I have seen trades in Whitcoulls at reasonable prices, the trades at the shop in PN arent cheap.

Thanks for the link though, never even heard of the site, cool to know I can get stuff at good prices without paying a fortune in freight.

Hmm...sorry if I sounded snarky...night shift and all

[Sacorn69]

Well it may surprise you to know that there is more to NZ than just Auckland. No Real Groovy here in Marton, and the prices of theirs I've seen on trade-me arent overly cheap(and always for ex-display books). Nearest Comic shop is in Palmerston North, and they cater mainly to war-gaming. Prices were from a bookshop in Wanganui, and while I have seen trades in Whitcoulls at reasonable prices, the trades at the shop in PN arent cheap.

Thanks for the link though, never even heard of the site, cool to know I can get stuff at good prices without paying a fortune in freight.

Hmm...sorry if I sounded snarky...night shift and all

.

You're right, comics are prohibitively expensive over here, which is why I haven't bought a new comic for a few years now. However, it's easy enough to get cheap comics off the auction websites, particulalry when buying bulk. I actually think they're cheaper than buying from the US half the time, due to the limited market over here and not having to pay international postage.

[Aaron King]

This is sort of a derailment, but:

I've purchased a few books on Comixology, and I've downloaded some .cbr files. I have a laptop with a screen that's somewhere around 11" or so. I also read a number of comics on a color Nook when I was working at Barnes & Noble.

Out of all of these options, the best reads are high-res .cbr files. I can flip them sideways and make them fullscreen. I can turn the page by just hitting the space bar. It's really easy, and it's about the size of a comic page.

When I read my Comixology books, it was pretty hard to be able to see the whole page at once while keeping the lettering legible. This was even harder with the digital-only Justice League book I bought since it was all-two page spreads. Since I have a trackpad and not a mouse, it's sort of a hassle to drag stuff around constantly.

Reading on the Nook was okay, but I'd sometimes accidentally enter an awful panel-to-panel, guided view thing that was hard to zoom back out of.

I guess I'm just annoyed because I think the page is an integral unit when dealing with a comic that was originally intended to be on a page. The best webcomics are the ones that know the aren't on a page and take advantage of screen formats.

ANYWAY, does anyone have suggestions? Was I doing Comixology wrong? Do I just have to wait for better readers? I'm very happy with physical comic books, but it would be great to buy cheap stuff on Comixology for trips or light reading.

[Shawn Hopkins]

This is sort of a derailment, but:

I've purchased a few books on Comixology, and I've downloaded some .cbr files. I have a laptop with a screen that's somewhere around 11" or so. I also read a number of comics on a color Nook when I was working at Barnes & Noble.

Out of all of these options, the best reads are high-res .cbr files. I can flip them sideways and make them fullscreen. I can turn the page by just hitting the space bar. It's really easy, and it's about the size of a comic page.

When I read my Comixology books, it was pretty hard to be able to see the whole page at once while keeping the lettering legible. This was even harder with the digital-only Justice League book I bought since it was all-two page spreads. Since I have a trackpad and not a mouse, it's sort of a hassle to drag stuff around constantly.

Reading on the Nook was okay, but I'd sometimes accidentally enter an awful panel-to-panel, guided view thing that was hard to zoom back out of.

I guess I'm just annoyed because I think the page is an integral unit when dealing with a comic that was originally intended to be on a page. The best webcomics are the ones that know the aren't on a page and take advantage of screen formats.

ANYWAY, does anyone have suggestions? Was I doing Comixology wrong? Do I just have to wait for better readers? I'm very happy with physical comic books, but it would be great to buy cheap stuff on Comixology for trips or light reading.

It's best on a high resolution 10 inch tablet like an iPad or Nexus 10. The Nook Color, if that's what you were using, isn't best Comixology experience. I can understand not liking guided view, but once you know the command to start and stop it it's not hard to avoid or get out of. It's just two taps on the iPad. I'd rather read full-screen, too, but sometime guided view is good to quickly zoom in and check out the details of a panel.

[dupont2005]

When and if the rights holders sort out their interests, they will have to find copies of the comics they want to make available--either in hard copy or download form. At such a date (which might be fifty years after we are all dead), let's hope someone has kept those comics (and/or scans of them) safe for the rights holders to publish. DC has had a devil of a time in the past putting together reprint editions as they don't have their own copies of the work. At such times they've had to hold their noses and go to the unwashed collectors for help.

Unlikely to be a problem in the modern age, since the comics are all digitized before printing, and I'm sure Marvel and DC each have a hard drive that can store it all.