Friday, November 23, 2007
More on the war against BitTorrenting of comic books
The popular BitTorrent blog TorrentFreak has posted about Marvel and DC cracking down on the act of using BitTorrent to distribute scans of comic books peer to peer. They also mention that a person that uploaded scans to binary newsgroups on Usenet received a similar warning letter.
Those comic fans who get their fix from Usenet don’t escape supply problems either. A prolific scanner/uploader known as ‘Oroboros’ has revealed he’s done releasing comics on Usenet. He said: “I’m done with the newsgroup. I got a DMCA notice from my newsgroup service. I have no posting abilities. I can’t even post a message saying I have to stop posting. If anyone can get to the group, please let them know that I’m done. They have my IP address in the notice and this is my one stated warning.”
He can’t even post a message explaining why he wont be posting comic scans. That’s just nutty.
I have a hard time getting behind the whole “downloading comics is a crime” notion. I have a hard time believing that it is stealing. Unlike the act of downloading music or video files, downloading comics involves something that is not available to the consumer by legal means. If you want a digital scan of a comic book that you can read on your computer screen, the only place to get it is from other people on the Internet. I would have a much easier time believing that downloading last month’s issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN was a crime if I could legally purchase a digital scan of last month’s AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.
Marvel Comics is now experimenting with digital comics with their new paid service, Marvel Comics Unlimited. The name is a misnomer. The service is extremely limited. You cannot download comics and read them using CDisplay. You have to read them online and in your web browser using a clunky interface developed by Marvel.
The overall quality of the scans is limited too. Pages I’ve looked at were blurry and the text was hard to read.
I wish Marvel Comics would try to mimic the iTunes model. I’d like to be able to purchase digital comics like I do with digital music. Why wont Marvel Comics try to sell digital comics for 99 cents an issue?
Until they do, I guess I’m stuck buying comics the old fashioned way.
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