Question about illegal comic book downloads

[Schnitzy Pretzelpants]

No one was really able to produce any kind of study specific to comics yet.

I have to disagree with classifying torrents (only when they involve copyrighted works) as a "service" or "convenience" that can be misused. It's not a service or convenience, it's something specifically and wholly used for petty criminality. That some people feel they are more justified and superior to other pirates because they later buy the works they torrent is one issue, but let's not pretend we're dealing with something that's generally used for a neutral purpose and is spoiled by a few bad apples. And even if you bought everything you ever torrented, because of the way they work you're personally helping distribute those works to people who simply won't.

I have to disagree with you though, because torrents are also a source for many things in the public domain that are rare - how the heck they even end up as a digital file is baffling to me. But the scads of information I have found on classic plays and other works truly stymied me.

I didn't bother to mention this as hardly seemed germane to the conversation.

There's also oodles of public domain music to be had.

[Shawn Hopkins]

I have to disagree with you though, because torrents are also a source for many things in the public domain that are rare - how the heck they even end up as a digital file is baffling to me. But the scads of information I have found on classic plays and other works truly stymied me.

I didn't bother to mention this as hardly seemed germane to the conversation.

There's also oodles of public domain music to be had.

As I said in my post, I'm not talking about those torrents, though. I'm talking only about torrents of copyrighted material. Those are intentionally created for the purpose of theft. Even if one tries to use them without stealing, there's no way to ethically entangle oneself in them because when using them you are becoming part of the infrastructure of a theft delivery system. It's not a service that can be misused, because use is misuse.

[dupont2005]

I've even heard of torrents of things that the copyright holder gives away free on their own site. The torrenters couldn't be bothered to actually visit the copyright holders website and give them that little bit of traffic and ad revenue, they just get everything from the torrent site. So even if you give your comic away for free, someone will find a way to steal it. Sad.