DC responds to piracy — 2½ years later
There’s been a lot of talk about how DC and Marvel started going after scanners and torrent sites this Thanksgiving weekend, and now Z-Cult has agreed to take down all Marvel comics and wait a month before posting any DC books.
To which my response is: what took you so long?
I have particular reason to say so: I met with DC’s vice president of legal affairs, Lillian Laserson, and her assistants, Paula Lowitt and Jay Kogen, about the issue of scans available online back in April 2005– over two and a half years ago.
At the two hour meeting which covered legal issues, business cases, media ecology, and public relations, I delivered a spreadsheet to them that was current as of April 1, 2005, showing them how many DC comics had been scanned in and were available online. This wasn’t a spread sheet I created, mind you, it was created by the scanning community showing their progress. And they had made some serious progress: I pointed out that of all the comics published by DC in their (at the time) 70 year history, over 75% of them had already been scanned in and were available online. The numbers were closer to 90% post-Crisis. In short, the genie was already pretty much out of the bottle.
I laid out a full online strategy for them, suggesting that the best thing for them to do would be to get in front and pretend they were leading the parade. Partner with their corporate parent, AOL, and make their content available either freely online or behind AOL’s wall, so that they could expand the brand and readership for their products, and get their comics in front of a much wider audience.
They thanked me for my time, but suggested that a certain higher-up at DC would never go for it– even though there would have been more than enough support from the online advertising market and from their corporate parents, and even though it would have been an obvious source of revenue that would have benefitted DC’s bottom line and supported all sorts of new comic initiatives.
Now, of course, AOL has switched over to a much more advertising supported model, and are making more money than ever. And DC? They’ve given the scanning community a good 31 months to work unmolested to get even more of DC’s comics scanned in and online.
So what did DC get from 31 months of inactivity? Beats me. But to quote Blazing Saddles, I’m sure somebody was trying to protect their phony-baloney job.
Related: see this piece in New York magazine’s weblog and this followup in the Huffington Post about Universal Music Group and how well they handled their executives handled the Internet. See, DC even had examples of what not to do.
Corporate types Just Don't Get It with relation to the 'net, apparently.Either they do nothing at all, or they over-react and pile up lots and lots of bad publicity. (Of course in the case of the music industry, they already had so much bad karma and such a one-who-cries-wolf reputation thaty it really didn't matter *what* they did.)The thing is, that while i don't fully subscribe to the "data wants to be free" party line, i *do* know that, if enough people want something that can be easily supplied, *someone* will supply it. And attempting to suppress the supply with draconian measures is not the answer.Just look at how well the War on (Some) Drugs is going.If DC had, as you say, moved out there, fulfilling the demand at a reasonable price, there would still be pirate scans available … but not so many, nor would they be as widely downloaded.
Years ago, as sales for comics drastically dropped, I approached DC Comics about posting their entire history of comics online as ninety-nine cent low-resolution PDF downloads. I explained that the exposure on the internet would be worldwide and those individuals wanting an actual copy of the book would be driven to comic shops.I suggested they partner with Barnes and Nobles.com, Borders.com and Amazon.com to create a virtual comic shop online. I even told them they could create on-line subscriptions to titles with incentives like a free download of Batman #1 or what have you. (Keep in mind that this was way before iTunes took off.)The response I got was that they felt the need not to turn their backs on the comic shops (and I genuinely felt through the dicussion that they had the impression that the Internet was just a passing fad)!So it doesn't surprise me that after years of fans swapping scans of entire runs on CD and DVD of Golden Age and Silver Age titles that they've now decided it's time to try and reign it in.For a corporate GIANT, there was of thinking is way too SHORT-sighted…
We're having a jolly conversation about this on Newsarama, but I'll repeat my opinion. If a fairly-priced comparable product to the fanscans existed, a good number (the majority) of people downloading scans would pay. And a good number of people who would NOT download fanscans WOULD download the legal ones.Marvel's plan is not comparable – you can't download the books (easily), you're basically paying a fee to read their copies, for as long as they see fit to keep it available. THat won't last long, and I hope they replace it with a better one right away, and not think, "See, they don't want the books online at all".I'm sure all the art for the modern books (as in this month's issues) exists in scanned form, from each step of the process. How neat would it be to be able to see the pencils, uncolored inks and final art for each page of your new book, like extra features on a DVD? Stuff like that would cost next to nothing for DC to assemble, and would be well received by the public. Almost pure profit. It's the music industry –> iTunes scenario all over again. We know where it's going to end; it's just a matter of how long it'll take.
Where was ya, Vinny? I waited outside Munden's for over an hour after sunset.;)
I should have known–any time books are digitized, my friend Glenn is in the thick of things. :) As someone who is a long-time DC comic reader and law professor, I remain saddened that DC has failed to follow Marvel's lead in making their archives available digitally and legally, whether online or on DVD. I would so love to revisit some of the books of my use, as well as affordably introduce my kids to DC stories in color rather as part of the still-appreciated b/w Showcase Presents volumes. {ProfJonathan}
Jonathan!Of course, I should have known– anytime IP law and the Internet collide, there's the good professor. (And a good professor he is, too. Take his courses at Touro if you ever get the chance.)
Z-Cult has already changed their mind and given the finger to Marvel and DC's lawyers. They said that since they are outside the US, the US copyright laws don't apply to them. Thus they are continuing to make Marvel and DC comics available via BitTorrent.