Scans_Daily is dead. Fuck ‘em.
66 Comments | Posted: February 28th, 2009 | Filed under: Meta, Thinking About Comics | Tags: scans_dailyPoint 1:
So, apparently if you run a LiveJournal community in which members post scans of big chunks of comic books that are on the stands right now and then whine about the spoilers those chunks contain, it’s not actually a marketing device, despite any remarkable powers of disillusionment you may have. Yes, a lot of vocal people have said that Scans_Daily helped sell them comics, but do you really think that the people who read the juicy bits to stay on top of things and ignore titles the rest of the time are really going to raise their hands to be counted?
Point 2:
No, the 5-page previews Marvel and DC send to Newsarama and CBR are not the same thing at all and everyone should know better than to even use that argument. Should the companies look at ways of marketing themselves to the LJ demographic? Perhaps. Should people feel it’s their right to post entire issues piecemeal to talk about how off-character some people from X-Factor were? No.
Point 3:
I can’t believe people are defending someone telling Peter David to die in a fire. Yes, it’s a too-common piece of internet hyperbole, but if a community is going to act like a group of internet brats, they’re going to be treated as such. Surprise, kids, welcome to the real world, where actions like being a complete dick to another human being have consequences.
Point 4:
“It’s just the internet” doesn’t cut it when it’s directly connected to copyright violation. If you’re going to act as a unauthorized, evangelical marketing device, you’ll also have to act like a responsible group of comics fans sharing some scans (we all do it, that’s fine) while respecting the creators and copyright holders. This is especially true when you are posting scans of comic books that are in stores and available to purchase.
Yes, I tried to be an active part of Scans_Daily for a while, because a few people in that community seemed to genuinely love comic books old and new and wanted to share that enthusiasm. I stopped when people told me I wrote the characters of my own webcomic incorrectly.
Edited To Add: Brigid Alverson did a good roundup of the Scans_Daily closure and made some points that I think are worth discussing. I also disagree with them, hence my comment there.
I’m honestly surprised s_d lasted this long.
In a lot of ways, s_d is/was the alt.wesley.die.die.die of comic books, and that’s really nothing to be proud of.
SD was only as good as what went into it (and I’m talking about comics and commentary, though it’s easy enough to just not read the replies; I stopped after flashing back to Idiocracy one too many times). If entire issues of current books were going up there, then yeah, that’s not really very cool at all. (Though I question how many people were really reading whole comics online who would, without SD, have bought said comics…particularly in cases where the sole purpose of posting the book was to talk about how much it blew.) But on the other hand, a lot of out-of-print work found its way there, too, and I’ll miss that. I don’t know that I would ever have otherwise seen Pictopia, for one thing. I realize that SD did not consistently use its powers for good — and that maybe it didn’t even mostly use its powers for good! — but when it did, I was happy to have it around.
Archives of long out of print comic books that are either out of copyright or, conversely, left at sea by complex licensing issues (I’m thinking old UK Action Force (the UK version of GI Joe) comics here) – great, all for it. Bootlegs maintain interest and often lead to official versions down the line.
Just ripping easily purchasable stuff that came out two hours ago and sticking it online? Not so good.
I overall really hated the community and the quality of discussion and fandom in it. But it had a certain quality in terms of seeing old (and really old) comics, and other works to see if it’s attractive (specially since comics criticism is a joke). I bought Whedon’s X-Men after reading a post in there (and barely believing that people could actually like something the writer of Buffy did), as well as Moore’s Tom Strong, Phonogram, Scott Pilgrim, Animal Man, Hellcat, Doom Patrol, and others (it managed to give you a better sense of what is being sold than just five pages — seriously, five pages publicity is quite absurd; it feels like seeing thirty random seconds of a Lost episode). I could at times find rare comics that I’d never heard of (french, italian, weird shit and rarely some heavy metal ones), or even little bits of comedy or interest (Alan Moore’s essay on comics and feminism, for instance). And rarely (very rarely), I could find some informed opinions (but that was a good while ago) that seemed worth it to follow. And it also provided good “service” in terms of where I would really hate spending money on (as a off-US consumer, these fucking things are really expensive), so I’ll probably cease buying anything for a really long time (except for things very well established and authors I’m keen — Seaguy 2, LOEG etc).
While people’s reaction to, say, Final Crisis in there (that was posted enough for one not need to buy it — but not enough for one to get the full picture and have an informed opinion) was, along with other moments, just terrible and enfuriating (and a perfect portrait of leeches), I don’t feel too good with it closing down. I find it signifies an ending of a browsing and research tool that brought me back to comics by helping me be better informed about a field that takes hard work not to be pushed away by a swamp of awful mediocrity.
Five pages of a comic is generally about 1/4 to 1/5 of most monthly comics. That’s plenty.
The “out of print work was on there” is not an argument either. As long as it’s not in the public domain, that work belongs to someone. Len Deighton’s excellent spy novels are out of print and I think it’s a shame, but if I was to scan and put up 49% of his work online, I wouldn’t be entitled to whimper that I was doing marketing for Ballantine Books and they were big meanies to me.
And I can verify that the “classic”/”out of print” scans and posts made up a small fraction of S_D’s output.
Scans Daily was cute for awhile, but the way some people reacted to some (pretty minor) things was unsettling. If anything it reminded me not to get too worried about The Submariner or Mr. Miracle’s marriage or whatever frivolous thing had my attention.
Good, I’m glad someone got busted for that rude, unfunny, and threatening internet phrase. Can they really not see that it’s a horrible and upsetting thing to say? Cheers to Peter David. Maybe I’ll go out and buy some of his comics right now.
I find it hard to believe that there were people on scans_daily who genuinely loved comics. Most just seemed there to rip into what was new and complain that it wasn’t the stuff they liked as a kid.
I can’t really agree, Bully — I mean, unless (a) the author* has requested the work not be there or (b) the site is somehow making money by presenting work it doesn’t own (really, maybe not even then), I don’t see any harm at all in having scans up of comics that are not currently otherwise available. As noted above, exposure to the work (which can’t happen if the work is OOP) may prompt demand for the work to be reprinted; and even if that doesn’t happen, who is losing money here? Maybe — maybe — some comics shops that carry the OOP comics…but again, if no one knows those comics exist, there can’t be any demand for them. If someone reads an OOP comic they never knew had been published, and proceeds to not hunt down and buy a physical copy of said comic, it’s hard to argue that that really constitutes anything like lost profit.
(Re: the Deighton example — book publishing being a different world from comics publishing, Ballantine, et al doesn’t maintain rights to a book they’ve allowed to lapse out of print, at least not indefinitely. I’m pretty sure the publisher coming after you in such a case *would* mean they were just being big meanies, because if they really cared, they’d, you know, actually try publishing the book themselves. Obviously comics is a different story, as old moldering comics that haven’t seen the light of day in a bajillion years still feature characters that are under current copyright/trademark to corporations that are actively using them. But a novel is almost always copyrighted to the writer, and so the interested party in such an instance would be the writer or his/her estate.)
Anyway, that’s kind of a moot point, since I doubt Marvel really cares that I’m reading a decades-old story that they never owned any rights to in the first place. I’m just slightly bummed that, you know, some jagoffs scanning X-Force or whatever managed to burn the whole house down. If it were just the room THEY were in, then okay.
Mike, I used Ballantine as an off-hand example of the most recent paperback publisher in which I have Deighton editions, but no, it doesn’t matter the publisher name. Whoever holds the copyright (Deighton, Deighton’s heirs if he’s passed on, a publishing company, etc.) is the only legal copyright holder in the market of his work. It’s not up for an outsider to decide what to do with the material.
I don’t see any harm at all in having scans up of comics that are not currently otherwise available.
Off the top of my head, here’s three harms: a complete scan reduces the customer demand and commercial viability for a reprint? The copyright holder not having artistic control over the way a complete work is represented? That it’s just plain illegal? Take your pick.
“unless (a) the author* has requested the work not be there”
I think this is a really big problem. Mike McGee and many others seem to believe that any given author thinks it’s okay if people he doesn’t know put up his creative work anywhere they want without asking him first.
I gotta disagree, as much as I love you Kev. The unkosher kind, naturally.
You’re point about all the people that DIDN’T buy a comic because they got what they needed from S_D are going to stand up and be counted is apt, I think, but there was also a significant number of people (all anecdotal granted) who lurked on S_D that were perfectly fine folks. The loud voices in S_D drowned out a lot, and I can’t blame people for pointing to the loudest MFers and the room and saying, “You let them in here.”
There is something about the space of LJ that was comfortable for a lot of people who wouldn’t feel the same in a LCS. Sad to say, for a lot of the women friends I got into comics (through pimp posts on S_D, mostly) the LCS is a terrifying at worst, mildly uncomfortable at best. It’s not as simple as saying “That’s what the LCS is for” because for many, the cost-benefit analysis of “Am I going to get stared at while I get my fix?” doesn’t really fall in the LCS’ favor. They wait for the trade because for the most part, the direct market is hostile to them, and I can’t blame them.
“Fuck Em”?
You’re right when you state that Scans_Daily didn’t have a legal leg to stand on. LiveJournal had every right to shut them down. But you know, that community was really important to a lot of it’s members. They’re understandably upset about losing a place they liked to go to meet up with friends. Telling them to go “fuck themselves” right now is hardly a classy thing to do. And it’s more than a little hypocritical considering one of the points of your posts is how immature and whiny all it’s members were.
‘Harms’ is really neither here nor there. SD was doing something that was borderline legal (depending on interpretation of fair use), and was certainly a breach of LJ’s TOS. They were naughty, they got caught, they received an almighty slap and were told to not do it again. No-one was thrown in a shark-pit for this, they were just stopped from doing it.
At which point, any grown adult would shrug, say ‘fair enough, it was fun while it lasted’, learn their lesson and move on. Unfortunately, this is the internet, where there’s a lightning fast transition from precedent to entitlement – get away with doing something wrong without censure for a little while, and people presume they have a god-given right to get away with it. Ho-hum.
Hey, hey, hey, nobody said I was classy or mature. Either way, I can’t help but compare favorably to the person who started this kerfuffle.
@Bully –
“I don’t see any harm at all in having scans up of comics that are not currently otherwise available.
Off the top of my head, here’s three harms: a complete scan reduces the customer demand and commercial viability for a reprint? The copyright holder not having artistic control over the way a complete work is represented? That it’s just plain illegal? Take your pick.”
I won’t argue with you on the presentation, but the other two things you list are, at best, arguable. You need to back up the claim that it reduces demand with some kind of stats, and the legality is absolutely irrelevant.
1) Can we please be more polite to one another? “You need to?” Really? You’re not the boss of a Little Stuffed Bull. Unless you work at BullCo. And I don’t think you do.
2) How do you prove a negative like that, anyway, Sam? That’s one of those statistical issues that has been a big part of the whole copyfight (blergh to that neologism!) in the first place.
Honestly, some of the content was worthy, but the comm itself had grown increasingly unpleasant for anyone who didn’t hatehatehate anything DC and Marvel were up to. It had become sort of a cesspool
on the Potomac.“and the legality is absolutely irrelevant.”
George W. Bush administration has been out of office for more than a month now. That argument doesn’t fly any more.
Never frequented Scans_Daily but honestly, and it’s been hammered home without anyone listening, really, in the world of movies, tv, music, ebooks and yes, comics… but the world is changing and the old business models won’t continue to succeed. They just won’t. Insisting they will is kind of luddite.
Digital files, DRM free, on a low cost subscription model – like the outstanding eMusic – or as free loss leaders with bounded/collected/special edition followups is, imho, the way of the future.
If people read/listen/watch your art – even for free – and they like it – THEY BUY YOUR STUFF. They become fans, and they find ways to buy even MORE of your stuff. See Wil Wheaton’s recent ebook experiment or anything Cory Doctorow’s done.
People who don’t buy, wouldn’t have anyways, and there’s no point in worrying about them, unless you enjoy stoking useless and and kind of pointless righteous indignation.
Jamee
Fuck ‘em is exactly the right thing to say. Scans_daily never showed an ounce of class, and former users certainly haven’t stopped now that scans_daily is gone. Church is sticking it to them better than they ever dished out by keeping his harshest dismissal to just two words. If he was a scans_daily user, this blog would have a “hate-on-scans_daily week” with a new 2,000 word post each day, as well as a concern-trolling series, “When Scans_Daily was awesome.” And that “important” community aspect? Join me in watching the brand new Noscans_daily livejournal community; all of the self-importance, none of the scans. I wonder how much traffic, how much activity that place will get? Hopefully, at least, Dirk Deppey won’t have to pretend it’s worth linking to.
Darfnap,
I suppose it is easier to ignore the jackassery online than it is in a physical store, but: Remember the porn weeks? The near-total focus on current superhero comics? The passionate hostility commentators would show to one another and to creators, especially to creators that tried to engage the community? The obsession with continuity and how DC and Marvel keep screwing up their characters? Dude, all scans_daily needed was poor lighting and a crappier organization system and it would have been everything wrong with a bad local comic shop distilled for online consumption. When I go to a physical store, I get professionalism and respect (I have been pretty lucky). Scans_daily? Not the place for such things.
Er, it does if you don’t accept the premise that “committing an illegal act” de facto constitutes “harm,” and really, that’s a premise nobody should accept in the first place because the two notions aren’t actually linked, but rather coincidental. Voluntarily smoking pot doesn’t hurt anybody, but it’s illegal. And so forth.
Bully’s first argument (that a scan diminishes reprint viability) is likewise very questionable in that it assumes that negative influence on reprint viability (IE, “individuals who read the work and then decide that they do not need to spend money to consume it”) outweighs positive influence on same (IE, “individuals who read the work for free and then decide that they would like to purchase it”). Needless to say, this has never actually been proven, and all anecdotal and statistical evidence in the area tends to prove the opposite conclusion.
Bless you. When I grow up I want to be just like you.
PAD
This reminds me of YouTube back when you could watch full episodes of tv programs people illegally uploaded.
I bought a lot of DVDs/merch BECAUSE I was able to watch new shows online through YouTube. When it stopped, I stopped buying because I live in Canada, where websites like Adult Swim, Hulu and Comedy Central are blocked. I couldn’t watch shows until a year after they originally aired in the States so I lost interest.
Scan Daily was the same in that I got into comics again because of it and have bought A LOT of comics, figures and shirts since my interest was renewed.
You people go on and on about legality and whatnot, but forget that copyright is in the interest of YOUR bottom line. That’s why it’s there.
Think about it: How many people do you think didn’t buy a comic because they saw just under half of an issue on Scans Daily as opposed to people that BOUGHT comics because of that site.
I have no doubt in my mind, legal or not, that Scans Daily was good for fans AND the industry.
And Peter David thinking being told to “Die in a Fire” is a threat of physical harm of his person is like someone thinking they’ve been sexually harassed because someone told them to “go fuck themselves”.
Rob:
MGK:
I agree with both of these. However, until the publishers take the initiative and start doing these things, it’s still against copyright law, and places like Scans_Daily don’t have a legal leg to stand on, plain and simple. As it stands, Marvel and DC give readers 20-25% of multiple single issues each and every week on Comic Book Resources and Newsarama. I think that’s more than adequate to make any sort of purchasing decision. Should they do more? Yes, but they own the toys, the toybox, and pay the creators. They get to call those shots.
Maybe I’m the squarest person here to believe that trying not to willingly break laws that are in the books is a sensible thing to do in and of itself, regardless of whether it does harm to others or not. I just think “the legality is absolutely irrelevant” is a pretty funny statement to make.
Hey Brian — our experiences with comic stores differ somewhat, I think, in respect to our genders. When I go into a store (even one I worked at for years) the assumption is often that I’m there for a boyfriend or a brother, or that I’m new and I needed to have my hand held or that I’m fair game for propositions, etc. It can be uncomfortable, it can be distracting, and sometimes, even scary (I’ve been followed to the bus stop once or twice, or pestered until I made up a boyfriend or a husband). Should a store be judged for the customers they serve? Or can I accept that the person that runs the store sometimes has little say about those who choose to patronize them? I don’t try and hold the store or a medium responsible for those who decide to partake in it. We always remember the bad experiences, while the normal or neutral ones usually get lost for lack of anything to remember them by. It’s natural, I get that. But for a new person, it’s an incredibly off putting experience if you aren’t prepared for it. Lately, S_D had become the perfect tool for me to get friends who were not comic fans before, interested in titles. They didn’t like the few experiences they had in LCS shops, found the environment unhelpful and closed off even in the nicest of places, but S_D was the perfect place to lurk and get a feel for the books out there. And, to be honest, gender wise, Scans Daily for all of its vitriol and frothing at the mouth, was far more comfortable than taking the risk of going to a LCS. The bad stores aren’t the exception, unfortunately, because as a medium comics and the direct market, is already pretty hostile.
Livejournal, for better or for worse, is a pretty gender neutral space and those people who participated in the porn weeks, in the savage infighting and hostile discussions, have been, if not in equal numbers, then mostly women, which is definitely unique in both the comics blogosphere and community in general. We all have the loud obnoxious guys in the corner embarrassing us from time to time, so why can’t S_D? Is it because, for the most part, the community that makes up S_D isn’t as monolithic, gender and sexuality wise, as most other comic spaces, online and in stores, seem to be?
That and the comments and discussion on S_D seemed hardly different, in the degree of vitriol and the seeming dislike of the entire medium/genre/world, than most other message boards I’ve been on or witnessed, which is why I have to wonder why S_D is the one getting pointed at and asked to leave. The scans, and the gray legal area they reside in, seems to be beside the point in a lot of the reaction to the community’s deletion — even in this post, it’s only 1 of the 4 points Kevin outlined, and for the most part the reaction seems to be centered on the people who made up the community, not the legality of what they were doing. That bothers me, and I can’t exactly articulate exactly why (which explains the length of this comment, I suspect, and I apologize), but it’s hard not to see it as a way of kicking the girls/others out of the clubhouse. It could be a knee-jerk assumption, but S_D, along with some other places on LJ, was one of the few places where I didn’t feel like I had to be on guard, or defensive, or wary because I was a girl, awful as the place was sometimes, and started getting more and more often. Scans_Daily was full of crazies, but they were our crazies, you know?
“Hey, hey, hey, nobody said I was classy or mature.”
Fair enough.
There is one thing that kind of confuses me during these debates (here and at other sites). People keep saying that they’re glad Scans_Daily is gone because everyone who was in the community was so negative. But if they weren’t members of the community then how do they know that? Did they lurk everyday or something? It seems kind of unfair to judge a community if you know nothing about it. It strikes me as being like one of those people who stumbles across a slash fiction site and start telling all the authors how deluded they are. That’s not directed at you Kevin since you state in your post that you were a member for a while. It just seems odd that all these posters at various sites are all swearing that they’ve hated Scans_Daily since before it was cool yet still claim to know all about it.
Which was Bully’s second point, and which was entirely valid. Understand that I think arguing the legality of scans_daily is a waste of time – it was copyright violation, plain and simple. The question then becomes whether it was copyright violation to which comics companies should turn a blind eye. I think they should, you don’t, and we’ve both got our reasons for that.
Frank S. Kim: but what about “the subject who is truly loyal to the chief magistrate”, and all that stuff? I can think of more than a couple of unjust laws that in my opinion ought not to be obeyed, can’t you?
Thanks for the link, Kevin, despite our disagreement. I would like to amplify one point, about the comics stores: For most people, it’s not even a question of being treated well or badly, it’s that they don’t realize such stores exist at all. In that way, I think, scans_daily expanded the community, by bringing comics to people who would never run across them in everyday life.
And yeah, if they were violating copyright and LJ’s TOS, then LJ had every right to give them the boot. Apparently, no one complained up till now, which should tell you something right there.
Jamee,
Scans_daily was the first website that I started following on a regular basis back in 2003/04, because I was/am a comics nerd and it seemed a hell of a lot more easy going than other internet message boards. The place had a sense of humor. And then Blue Beetle got shot. Then there was the whole panic over homosexuality and slash (this thread’s own mightygodking was the center of one flame war when he wrote you shouldn’t take Batman telling Nightwing he loved him in a comical way). Then the more obnoxious users started taking over and thefakeheadline basically quit moderating. As the list of users I knew to avoid grew, finding entertainment on scans_daily became more of a chore, and I finally just quit s_d and lj. Whenever I ventured out of the posts linked by Dirk Deppey at Journalista, I found I wasn’t missing much. So: I know that place was negative. I know that people who appear to have come late to the “hate on s_d” party are right. Scans_daily squandered its potential, becoming just like the threads and Newsarama and John Bryne’s forum. And that’s terrible.
Darfnap
Your comment on the girls being kicked out of the clubhouse jogged my memory of the ‘discussion’ over slash scans_daily had a few years ago. I certainly think then the boys were trying to kick out the women. But I don’t think that’s the cause of celebration now, nor the factor that made people eager to see scans_daily go. With scans_daily gone the internet lost something akin to Wizard, or Newsarama, or John Bryne, not a place for girls to like comics. I’d be happy to see those places go, too. I’m certainly not happy to hear that you and your friends have had bad experiences in real life.
“but what about “the subject who is truly loyal to the chief magistrateâ€, and all that stuff? I can think of more than a couple of unjust laws that in my opinion ought not to be obeyed, can’t you?”
Maybe I can, but it would be stupid of me to disobey them. I’m living in the US as a permanent resident so I don’t have the political power to change laws even if I believe them to be unjust, and a violation of a seemingly trivial law can get me and my family deported back to a country that has a significantly less regard for civil liberties compared to the US. So as far as I’m concerned, trying not to break a law is a sensible thing to do.
I followed S_D for a long time, dating back to maybe ’05 or ’06. Before the 50% rule, certainly. I enjoyed the weirder stuff, the occasional smut, the crack. I snarked with the rest of ‘em and grumbled as was my want about Max Lord shooting Ted and Iron Man going all fascist, but there was always stuff to be enthusiastic about.
I’m not sure how much of my drift away was me changing and how much was them. Nonetheless I place the transition at around the end of “One More Day” and the beginning of “Brand New Day.” I think that kinda broke them. From then on everything was suspect- every change to the characters suddenly was a permanent desecration, no writer really understood them, and the negativity seemed to grow. The haters would argue so vociefrously that trying to defend anything was almost a lost cause. See: BATMAN R.I.P. and FINAL CRISIS. (Also: just about anything in WONDER WOMAN even when Gail Simone started writing.) (Also: BIRDS OF PREY after Simone.)
It’s a trait of fandom, even the less-geeky ones. Eventually people get cranky and nothing new is worth pursuing anymore.
Point taken, Frank!
MGK: Voluntarily smoking pot doesn’t hurt anybody, but it’s illegal.
Maybe, but I bet you still had to pay for the pot up front.
Kevin Church. You are a tool.
Kevin Church. You are a tool.
Yeah, that’s the kind of reasoned discourse and cogent argumentation I’ve come to expect from scans_daily and its defenders.
I’m a cordless drill!
Mike McGee and many others seem to believe that any given author thinks it’s okay if people he doesn’t know put up his creative work anywhere they want without asking him first.
Well, I can tell you authoritatively that something Mike McGee is not crazy about is having words put in his mouth. What Mike McGee actually does believe, vis a vis this situation, is that the author of a work that is out of print (and therefore in no position to make him money anyhow, and in fact is only likely to ever make him money again if enough people develop an interest in said work to bring it back into print, an endeavor that can only be helped — not hurt — by actually, like, bringing it to the attention of people ignorant of its existence and can-you-see-where-I-am-going-with-this?) probably does not give a shit at all if a site like this one is posting his work. In fact, that author is probably quite happy to find his work — work that is otherwise dead as disco — in a position to be read. I think it’s very important to explain for the hard of reading that I am only — only — talking here about work that is not commercially available for one reason or another. Posting of entire comics that you can walk across the street and buy, new, right now, with proceeds going to the appropriate parties, is another matter entirely.
“Well, I can tell you authoritatively that something Mike McGee is not crazy about is having words put in his mouth.”
But apparently you have no problem assigning opinions and feelings to authors.
“I think it’s very important to explain for the hard of reading that I am only — only — talking here about work that is not commercially available for one reason or another.”
I guess I should amend my post: Mike McGee seems to believe that any given author thinks it’s okay if people he doesn’t know put up his creative work anywhere they want without asking him first, as long as the work is out of the commercial marketplace. Even though it may have been the author’s choice to withdraw the material from the market in the first place, he should be happy that his control over how his work is released to the public has been taken out of his hand.
I’m sorry, Frank, but this is a fairly moronic argument because just about no author EVER has made the choice to “withdraw the material from the market.” Seeing a book go out of print is tantamount to setting a big fucking tombstone on top of it. It’s just not a choice that most authors make for themselves. Creators want to be paid, yeah, but they also want to be read; if the first is not a possibility — and scans_daily isn’t in much of a position to bring something back into legitimate print — then I think most would be happier with the second than nothing. When we talk about work that isn’t otherwise legitimately available, then presenting that work for free is at best the spearhead of a campaign to bring that work back into print and at worst an effort to let that work be read…something that has been denied the work by the vagaries of publishing. I am quite serious about that, and it’s hardly me advocating piracy; quite the opposite; in such an instance, the site is keeping that work alive. A book without readers isn’t a book — it’s nothing. It does not exist. For someone who labored over and loved that book, that is not a desirable state of affairs. So no, I don’t think the average author of a work is likely to have an issue with the presentation of said work.
All of which (again) is sideways to what actually got SD shut down; the vanished scans of commercially unavailable material are evidently collateral damage, the real problem being scans of material that is very much commercially available.
Guys. Please be nice to each other.
Thanks!
Just because you really, really care about something doesn’t mean you own it.
If somebody wants to put their work online for free for people to enjoy, that’s great. But if they don’t want to, you have to friggin’ respect that. Whether or not it’s “great advertising” (a hilarious lie) is beside the point. You’re not their marketing director. You don’t get to make that call.
I dropped out of s_d years ago anyway, after trying it for a few weeks, just because the signal to noise ratio was so low. For every entertaining and respectfully brief excerpt from a cool out-of-print comic, there were countless posts of practically entire issues of Marvel’s and DC’s latest, clearly posted just so people could have boring arguments over them without paying for them. And crummy manga scanlations, again of currently available titles. And similar dull-as-dirt pirated crud.
I don’t get it. My time is valuable, just like my money. If I don’t like something enough to spend three damn dollars on it, why would I want to spend twenty minutes?
Yes, scans_daily was illegal, but it was also a community of people genuinely enthusiastic about comics, which from anecdotal evidence did help sell some comics. In a world where >95 percent of comics ever produced by Marvel, DC and the other big companies is available on bittorrent or usenet, going after scans_daily is moronics. Scans_daily is no substitute to the comics themselves; arguing that there are people who only read it for the juicy bits and won’t buy the titles is silly; these people won’t buy these comics without s_d either. That’s the RIAA argument: if only we make it impossible to get our music online, people will buy the cds. Not happening, oddly.
If Peter David doesn’t want to be insulted he shouldn’t have tattled to Marvel…. What astonishs me is that he thinks its worthwhile to do this; does he think he’ll get a bigger royalty check next month or soemthing, or is he just miffed people are criticising his comics, or what?
To say scans_daily was all about pirating current material is wrong, btw. There were great series by e.g. people examing the complete history of the Suicide Squad, or the guy analysing the political assumptions behind G.I. Joe, or the showcasing of obscure Golden Age comics…
Like any fan community, it had its bad and its good sides, but it was far from people just pirating stuff.
“Hey, hey, hey, nobody said I was classy or mature. Either way, I can’t help but compare favorably to the person who started this kerfuffle.“
Except, um, that’s NOT the person. That’s just someone commenting on it.
The person who DID use the internet catchphrase has stated they regretted using it. And said as much to Peter David himself. Unfortunately he wasn’t listening.
@Kevin –
“1) Can we please be more polite to one another? “You need to?†Really? You’re not the boss of a Little Stuffed Bull. Unless you work at BullCo. And I don’t think you do.”
I did not intend to come across the prick, and I apologise for that. I’ll try to avoid putting my foot in my mouth in the future.
“2) How do you prove a negative like that, anyway, Sam? That’s one of those statistical issues that has been a big part of the whole copyfight (blergh to that neologism!) in the first place”
MGK addressed this far more eloquently than I can, and all I could really add to address bully’s initial claim is anecdotal.
Ultimately, I have no interest in defending scans_daily as it currently stands. It blatantly violated the ToS of the site hosting it, and as such had a limited lifespan. If it were to come back with different hosting and a different ToS? Then I might defend it.
(And yes, copyfight is a rather silly neologism.)
I’m too angry to post coherently on this, but for right now I really wish people would quit ascribing motives to Peter David.
It is totally ridiculous for people who are confidently stringing together these complex and nebulous series of justifications for an entire community to call into question Peter David’s plainly-stated ones restricted to himself.
Also, for all anyone gets a vote, David’s motivation could be losing a spot on the 7th Grade basketball team to Jerry “Scans” Dailey, or he really, really hates complete histories of Suicide Squad. It’s not tattling when an adult turns in a bunch of kids.
In general, if you assume control over someone else’s material because you can, you shouldn’t get to whine when people resume control over that material because they can. And if an enterprise is based on the presumption that you know what someone should be doing with their stuff better than they do, no one is going to take you seriously when you extend that presumption to how the people you’re exploiting should react to what you’re doing.
I look forward to the new, image-absent post-Scans Daily community that will obviously spring up because of all the positive aspects to it that had nothing to do with looking at copyrighted material. I’m sure traffic will be about the same.
Tom, considering our occasionally tortured history: Thanks for saying that.
And, boy…that’s what you post when you’re incoherent? It’s about ten times better than some people have been posting on this subject when they’re firing on all cylinders.
PAD
One predominantly LJ-specific mental quirk that fascinates and irritates me in equal measure is the belief that the internal rules of online communities are somehow relevant in the wider world. There seems to be a belief that it was PAD’s duty to deal with S_D on its own terms, to spend more time there and learn about its inner loveliness and its significance as a community and… and… er, no.
Out in the real world, PAD had no duty to do any of the above. Marvel, as the copyright holder, had the right to know about the material on S_D. So PAD told them. At which point Marvel may or may not have exercised their right to make a complaint but, really, it’s hard to see how anyone did anything wrong there.
Yes, if you loved S_D this may well suck, and it may well seem unfair, and Marvel or DC or PAD or whoever may lose some goodwill and maybe even some sales because S_D has closed down. But that doesn’t mean that they’ve done anything wrong, and doesn’t mean that copyright holders or creators should do anything less the next time this happens.
You know, I had a lot of work and chores to do this weekend, and this debate has very effectively distracted me. Thanks, internet!
I just posted this at Digital Strips because this whole discussion makes me a bit crazy. Please forgive th re-post here:
Why is there any controversy here!? If these people honestly feel that this is a valid way to promote comics, then re-post the scans that Marvel/DC release and then talk about the content with spoiler warnings. If you scan and post content that the copyright owner has expressly asked not be released THEN YOU ARE STEALING. Why is this being discussed as if it has merits? It is not a valid argument that because there are worse sites that it gives these people some sort of rights. It is not a valid argument that because these people believe they “love” comics that they should be allowed to do this. It is absolutely not a valid argument that anyone who believes they understand the property’s marketing nuances better than the owner should be allowed to diddle in the mix. Does Coke allow this? Does Disney? DO YOU?
The copyright holders have asked you not to, therefore if you post these scans YOU ARE THIEVES. And you are not stealing to feed your family, so PLEASE do not try for any moral high ground here. YOU ARE THIEVES, you are DELIBERATELY stealing from a copyright holder that believes you are damaging their product. Start the conversation there.
**********
Thanks for the great site.
Kevin, I’m not sure how you arrived at the conclusion that Willow was responsible for this whole kerfluffle. I was the person who made the comment on the Scans Daily X-Factor #40 post that probably pissed off Peter David the most. Willow did not comment on that Scans Daily post. Her only involvement was to comment on her own blog about Scans Daily’s ultimate demise and attribute partial (or all) responsibility for its demise to Peter David.
Scans_Daily introduced me to a lot of review sites, fans, and comics I didn’t know existed (Archie and Marvel are what make it to newsstands around here). The themed weeks were like friends showing each other the things they liked. Everything posted had some following. It was “never just you.”
My closest comic shop is over 20 miles away, and the staff is quite unhelpful. So I have a pull list at the next closest comic shop, 35 miles away. I know things are cheaper on the internet like Heavy Ink, but I like talking to people who enjoy comics. I’m glad there’s still The ISB to read about new releases, Bully Says for very opinionated (but much loved) older comics, Comics Worth Reading for trade recommendations, and they have their followings, but they’re led by single voices and so are different animals.
I liked the community, and I’m sad that it’s been shuffled about.
Yes, I tried to be an active part of Scans_Daily for a while, because a few people in that community seemed to genuinely love comic books old and new and wanted to share that enthusiasm. I stopped when people told me I wrote the characters of my own webcomic incorrectly.
So basically you hated it because some people were assholes to you and now you are happily pissing on the ashes. That’s cool, buddy. Let me echo above that yelling at other people to be mature and then being a dick yourself is pointless, and counter-productive.
As an over-all point, all of comic book fandom is bitchy and retarded. Scans didn’t have some special sticking point in that realm, reading the forums at CBR makes me lose my will to live, except there the creators themselves also stop by to be dicks. [And I hang out on fark for fuck's sake.]
As for the immaturity screaming back and forth, I am almost 30 years old and I read comic books, I thought that was kind of a given that I’m immature. I’ll be mature when I’m dead, thanks.
Then where does commenting about my statements fall?
You know, something just occured to me. Kevin, you say that you tried to be active in the Scans_Daily community but left because of the people there. So you didn’t leave because you felt that the community was illegal and immoral and was hurting the industry? But now you’re condemning all the other Scans_Daily users for doing what you used to do? That seriously puts your post in a whole new light for me. You are being WAY too judgemental. I understand that your feelings on the place may have changed since you left it, but to make blanket statements about an entire community of people for doing what YOU YOURSELF used to do and to not express even the least bit of humility or sense of irony about it? That’s not very fair.
1) The community changed greatly in a very short amount of time, as multiple people have pointed out.
2) I shared material that I had created versus posting other people’s works.
3) Humility. Ha.
“If Peter David doesn’t want to be insulted he shouldn’t have tattled to Marvel…. What astonishs me is that he thinks its worthwhile to do this; does he think he’ll get a bigger royalty check next month or soemthing, or is he just miffed people are criticising his comics, or what?”
Now what is this insanity? “If that lady didn’t want a rock tossed in her window, she shouldn’t have called the cops on those drug dealers.”
Just because some thieving little band of miscreants got busted because of “tattlers” (and isn’t that just a fucking adorable little turn of the phrase) doesn’t mean that whatever abuse they might be subjected to is fair game.
I blame Richard Arnold. He’s still sore at Peter David over all that Star Trek nonsense, and framed him.
“2) I shared material that I had created versus posting other people’s works.”
But you still participated in the community. If the community itself is rotten then isn’t adding to it wrong also, even if it is your original stuff?
I don’t mean to sound bitchy or nitpicky anything. I think that you are an awesome blogger and I’ve always found you to be an intelligent person too. I guess I’m just a little surprised at the sheer amount of internet vitriol this whole situation has stirred up, both towards the Scans_Daily people and Mr. David. I’ve always known that the online comic community can turn on people at the drop of a hat, but people are acting like the Scans_Daily people or Mr. David just ran over their dog, depending on what side they are.
It’s always kind of sad to me when stuff like this happens and we all start throwing around insults instead of talking about how awesome Batman is, like we should be.
Martin
Isn’t it possible for those people who were doing themed series to continue doing so, on livejournal and otherwise? I think it is, and I think they should. I think they will be become better for not having to associate with the toxic fanboyishness that characterized scans_daily’s insular community, and I think followers of such series will be better off, too. I know I liked it a lot more when I discovered the wider community of comics blogs and websites beyond livejournal, and could find amusement and information without having to read the thoughts of a bunch of entitled fans who were just wrong.
I deleted the comment before this one because it was loaded with the typical “beards and cheetos” crap see being used too often and I was going to just say “Hey, let’s focus on the issues of entitlement and copyright violation that are at the heart of it,” but instead I think I’m going to shut down comments on this post. At this point, things can only get nastier and there’s plenty of other sites discussing it. Thanks to everyone who was civil; I appreciate the thoughtful discussions and arguments a lot of you put forth.