Tag: Z-Cult FM

Z-Cult FM to shut down

It looks as though the one-time popular comic book BitTorrent tracker Z-Cult FM is shutting down. Site owner “Serj” posted a statement that he was shutting it down. The reason he is shutting it down is one of money. He posted the following comment on the Z-Cult FM message board:

Main reason the site is being closed is money issues. The site was on a dedicated server as at time before Marvel etc shut down the site was popular and needed a dedicated server to run but since then I never changed the server hoping that one day we could get all users back but this has never happened. So server is gonna get killed and site put offline for bit.

Even though Marvel and DC both enjoyed a steady increase in sales during the time Z-Cult FM was in existence, both took steps at trying to get Z-Cult FM shut down. At the time it appeared they were successful. Not that this stopped people from downloading comics via BitTorrent. People just switched over to the popular music and video trackers such as The Pirate Bay and Mininova.

So I have been told.

Eventually Z-Cult FM came back, but I think most people just continued downloading comics through the other BitTorrent trackers. If anything, news of the actions by Marvel and DC only made the practice of downloading comics more popular. People who didn’t know that you could download entire issues, even entire runs of comic books, all of a sudden knew about it.

So I have been told.

I’ve always believed, unlike the music or movie industry, file sharing helped the comic book industry. It allowed people to read comics that they wouldn’t normally be able to read. People might be more inclined to starting buying a comic book if they could first go and read the preceding issues in digital form. Unlike the music and movie industry, the digital version of a comic book is a lot different than the version sold in stores.

So I have been told.

by Rick  /  June 6, 2009  /  Posted in: Comic Books
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Comic book artist Jamal Igle is against copyright infringment?

Jamal-IgleThere has been a spirited debate among funny book nerds over on the Newsarama forums concerning the Z-Cult FM comic book BitTorrent controversy. Comic book artist Jamal Igle has been weighing in on the matter from his prospective. Even though the comic book industry has enjoyed a steady rise in sales during the time Z-Cult FM has been in existence, Jamal believes people that BitTorrent comic books cost professionals such as him money.

In fact, he believes that people that do it should be prosecuted:

Bit torrents of copyright material for mass downloading and file sharing are illegal and should be prosecuted.

Prosecuted? Jamal seemingly thinks it’s wrong to reproduce copyrighted material except when he’s the one that is doing it. Like many comic book artists, Jamal frequently attends comic book conventions and does commissioned artwork of licensed comic book characters that he does not own or have the rights to.

Using BitTorrent to share digital scans of comic books and producing unauthorized comic book art for sale are both illegal. One of the two is done to make some extra money and the other isn’t.

It’s true that comic book publishers know that many of their artists do commission work on the side using their licensed properties and they choose to turn a blind eye to it. They used to do the same thing to the people the used BitTorrent for comics. Marvel and DC Comics never seemed to care about Z-Cult FM. Now they do.

Obviously things change.

If comic book publishers don’t think commissioned sketches adversely effect their bottom line, they are wrong. Comic book fans only have so much money to spend at a comic book convention. Every single dollar they spend on high priced, unauthorized comic book art is one less dollar they have to spend on licensed, authorized products. If I was a vendor at a comic book convention and I paid money to set up a booth on the sales floor so I could sell licensed, authorized comic books and collectibles, I wouldn’t like the fact that a substantial amount of money was being spent on unlicensed artwork in Artist Alley.

If comic publishers want to crack down on copyright infringement, then they need to be consistent about it. They shouldn’t just single out people who upload scans of comic books while turning a blind eye to comic book artists that crank out $500 Wolverine sketches at comic book conventions.

They can’t have it both ways.

31 Comments by Rick  /  December 6, 2007  /  Posted in: Comic Books
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DC sends another letter to Z-Cult

Who didn’t see this coming? DC Comics has sent a second letter to the folks over at the comic book BitTorrent site Z-Cult FM asking them to remove all DC comics from their trackers. Both Marvel and DC had – in a joint effort – already sent a similar letter, but it was rejected by Z-Cult FM administrators because the comic book publishers failed to follow the proper Z-Cult FM procedures for getting copyrighted material removed.

Something like that.

This of course does absolutely nothing to stop the BitTorrenting of comic books. This just means that it wont be done through Z-Cult FM. People will just start using the major BitTorrent tracking sites. The same sites that people use for BitTorrenting music, movies, and TV shows.

Marvel and DC Comics can try to send a letter to The Pirate Bay.

The only thing this hullabaloo with Z-Cult FM has really done is to raise the public consciousness that a person can use the unstoppable technology of BitTorrent to download comic books for free. So much has been written this past week about Z-Cult FM. If people didn’t know about it before, they certainly do now. That in itself is ironic because Z-Cult FM was always kind of on the down-low. Not a lot really got written about the Z-Cult FM community before last week. Alexa shows that their web traffic has nearly doubled in the past week.

Maybe Marvel and DC should have just continued pretending that Z-Cult FM didn’t exist. They may have wanted to stop people from downloading comics. Instead, they may have only helped open the flood gates.

by Rick  /  November 30, 2007  /  Posted in: Comic Books
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Does downloading hurt comic book sales? (Updated)

The news that Marvel and DC Comics were finally taking an interest in BitTorrent networks such as Z-Cult FM got me wondering just what effect peer-to-peer file sharing did to their financial well being. Do peer-to-peer networks such as Z-Cult FM actually hurt the comic book industry? Are comic book publishers losing money because of Z-Cult FM?

We’ve seen what file sharing has done to the music industry. It’s been losing a lot of money because it it. Lots of money. What has it done to comic book publishers?

I found sales charts for the last ten years on Comics Buyer’s Guide. If you look at the overall sales numbers for the North American comic book direct market, you will notice that sales have actually been steadily increasing since 2004.

Z-Cult FM began in 2004. I honestly don’t know when people started downloading comic book scans. I know I first heard of it in 2004. I first learned about it from an article on Ninth Art.

There seems to be a parallel between downloading comics and buying comics. It would seem the more people download comics, the more people buy comics. That’s something not seen in the music industry. Record sales have plummeted with the popularity of peer-to-peer music sharing networks. Record sales continue to decline.

Why isn’t this true with comic books?

Update: I’ve added the 2008 figures.
9 Comments by Rick  /  November 28, 2007  /  Posted in: Comic Books
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Popular comic book BitTorrent site Z-Cult FM back online

It appears that people that want to use BitTorrent to acquire digital scans of comics still have a place to go to. Z-Cult FM is back online and is once again offering trackers like they were doing before they were threatened with legal action from Marvel and DC. This from the Z-Cult FM website:

Hi all fans and users of Z-Cult FM,

After much debate and thinking we have decided to take the following actions and we hope you will support what we have decided to do.

Z-Cult FM Comic Community will re-open all of its Trackers and locked down sections back to how they were earlier in the week before any legal action. We are carrying out this action for the following reasons:

  • I am (We are) based outside of the US and are not therefore subject to US legislation that was present on the legal documents sent to us.
  • Here at Z-Cult FM we have always had a clearly explained and signposted policy of making it clear to all comic publishers and copyright holders that we will on request (and reasonable proof of ownership) remove their material from our trackers if they requested us to. Please see: http://zcultfm.com/dmca.php
  • Marvel Comic and DC Comics, who confirmed they have seen our site but refused to follow our policy. All other publishers in the past who have followed this policy have been respected and the agreed actions taken.
  • Marvel Comics and DC Comics gave us 3 day to comply with their demands and then decided to go on their Thanksgiving holiday. So 2 of these 3 days we have been unable to contact Marvel by telephone to discuss this matter with them. We would like to thank DC Comics who were available by telephone and were friendly enough to talk about the situation and confirm the documents were indeed from DC Comics.
  • The pressure from our members– their readers– demands that we do so.
  • Chances are this won’t be the last we hear from Marvel Comics and DC Comics but once they have read our email we sent them with out response they will hopefully carefully think about their next set of actions.
  • We would like to thank all our users and the number of outside sites on the Internet for their support. Without members like yourself there would be no point owning such a site.

When I first read about this, I wondered just how any legal action by Marvel and DC would play out since Serj, the guy that runs Z-Cult FM, lives in the UK. Most likely the lawyers working for Marvel and DC thought they would only have to threaten the folks that run Z-Cult FM. I guess now they will have to do more then threaten people with an email if they want Z-Cult FM to go away.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

4 Comments by Rick  /  November 25, 2007  /  Posted in: Comic Books
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Marvel and DC are cracking down on BitTorrent

I’m not sure why it took them so long, but it seems Marvel and DC Comics are joining forces to try to crack down on using BitTorrent to share comics. I assumed a long time ago that they simply didn’t care that people were downloading their comics. That doesn’t seem to be the case any longer.

Z-Cult FM, a popular comic book BitTorrent tracking site, posted a message to their website on 21 November explaining that they had been contacted by Marvel and DC Comics and as a result, all torrents had been removed from the Z-Cult FM website.

We got legal letters from both Marvel and DC Comics who have been working together to send us these legal threats. We are currently dealing with the legal issues and they have given us 3 days before they are forced to take anymore action..Z-Cult FM website was put offline last night by me (no one else) after I got the email while in work and issued a code red alert (we have drills also 5 times a year). We decide putting the site offline was best course of action to analyse the situation and decide our best course of action. We have confirmed one of the legal letters is 100% from DC Comics when a phone call was made to DC Comics who confirmed the email and its contents. As of today we was unable to contact Marvel and we are trying again tomorrow just to 100% confirm it.

I can’t help but to think that this is somehow connected to Marvel Comics unveiling their new online comic service. I have to think Marvel finally realized just how great the demand is for digital comics. The site went down numerous times because too many people were trying to access the site at the same time.

The loss of Z-Cult FM won’t stop comics from being distributed through BitTorrent. The same popular torrent tracking sites that are used to distribute music, movies, and TV files are also used for comics. They just don’t specialize in comics the way Z-Cult FM did.  The Z-Cult FM site was utilized more for torrents of older comics.  The comics that can be downloaded from the other BitTorrent sites are usually comics that came out in comic book shops that same week.

1 Comment by Rick  /  November 23, 2007  /  Posted in: Comic Books
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