They are not theft. They are not theft of services. You’re misapplying the terms. I have no difficulty in supporting my point of view on this issue. I also have no difficulty paying for stuff if I want to. Middle ground.

“Anyone who says it’s not a crime, or it’s not stealing, Colleen Doran’s post gives a pretty good summary of what exactly is wrong with pirating comics”

Read it. It’s not stealing. She makes a good case for the plight of creators and why a person *should not* download, but she is wrong about a lot of things in her post as well.

“The Law” is something I have no difficulty in arguing about either.

“The law is the law when it comes to illegally scanning an entire publication and making the scanned pages available to others. People ought to be able to appreciate the illegality of that….Going after the people who do the initial scanning of a publication is the only way to combat that form of piracy.”

Agree and disagree. I agree that the scanners are the source of the problem. I also disagree in that I think a person should be allowed to scan a comic book they buy and do whatever they want with it. Send it to friends, etc. To me, that’s fair use. Doing that, however, comes into conflict with a creator trying to earn a living (which is something I think most people are for.) There needs to be a balance or middle ground between fair use and creators’ rights and the law as written isn’t it nor is getting rid of that law the answer. It’s a difficult topic and the people that say “it’s stealing” or “downloading is no big deal” and refuse to acknowledge any other possibility are the ones that keep this argument going because they feed off of each other.

It’s not stealing, and it is a big deal.

SRS

Anyone who says it’s not a crime, or it’s not stealing, Colleen Doran’s post gives a pretty good summary of what exactly is wrong with pirating comics, and why it’s a felony

These sites impact sales globally, so it’s a whole lot of reasons for Japan to take on these terrible people.

Speaking of younger fans, where the hell are the *parents*? Maybe some industry outreach to *them* could help, reminding them that copying manga instead of buying it is illegal and hurts other workers (and *their* kids!) so parents should remind their kids to steer clear of this sketchy behavior (unless the industry prefers having these parents pay less attention to what their kids buy with their allowances and so doesn’t want to attract any more parental attention to these titles…).

Maybe they just don’t want those Indonesians, Malaysians, Filipinos, and Signaporeans who can’t read Japanese to know what happens in the books in the first place?

But I guess the more important point is that deciding these things is up to the producers, not the consumers. It’s not the consumers’ right to say, “Well, I’ve decided this can’t have any significant impact on your business so I’m going to do what I want even if it’s against your wishes.” Would we be having this same argument if we were talking about printed comics? Would it be OK for someone to just take a copy because he was never going to buy it anyway and by doing so the audience is expanded?

And Army, that’s the irrefutable fact I was talking about. Being at all involved in unauthorized distribution is an infringement on the producers’ rights to determine how their products are distributed. There is a legal concept of “theft of services” which includes avoiding paying for services that are otherwise available in exchange for compensation, so unauthorized comics downloads are theft. Again, it’s up to you to decide if that law is moral and worth abiding. Garyisubercool has decided the infringement is wrong but he’s still OK with it.

Also, Chris — your point about piracy not being the sole reason for declining sales is obviously not only valid but right, and I don’t think anyone is arguing that this should be the industry’s only response to the problem.

“It’s sort of interchangeable in the end.”

No it’s not. It’s not stealing because IT’S NOT STEALING. It’s not a semantics argument.

I also don’t think digital copies should fall under copyright violation because I see it as fair use. In addition to that, I want to see people earn a living wage for their work. You can’t have both rampant free entertainment and entertainers earning a living wage so I’m all for a middle ground. The middle ground isn’t putting people in jail, fining them until they’re broke, and calling your audience names or letting your sycophantic fans do it.

I’m on the middle ground, and I’m waiting for everyone else to get with the program. Not my fault people can’t handle the truth.

Since there apparently is a demand for casual reading of comics online, licensing of older comics to Web sites could conceivably result in more revenue from them than selling digital copies of them would, and the operators of the Web sites would be motivated to discourage piracy.

SRS

Actually, what you’re doing is fraud which is completely different. You’re intentionally trying to take someone else’s name to besmirch them.

“It’s sort of interchangeable in the end.”

No it’s not. It’s not stealing because IT’S NOT STEALING. It’s not a semantics argument.

I also don’t think digital copies should fall under copyright violation because I see it as fair use. In addition to that, I want to see people earn a living wage for their work. You can’t have both rampant free entertainment and entertainers earning a living wage so I’m all for a middle ground. The middle ground isn’t putting people in jail, fining them until they’re broke, and calling your audience names or letting your sycophantic fans do it.

I’m on the middle ground, and I’m waiting for everyone else to get with the program. Not my fault people can’t handle the truth.

Obviously it will!