digital piracy
Comics A.M. | San Diego Convention Center plan advances
San Diego Convention Center
Conventions | San Diego City Council on Tuesday approved the basic funding plan for the proposed $500 million expansion of the San Diego Convention Center, home to Comic-Con International. At the center of the financing scheme is an assessment district that adds between between 1 cents and 3 cents per dollar to room taxes of 224 hotels with more than 30 rooms. Those hotels closest to the convention center would be assessed an extra 3 cents per dollar, and those farthest away could be charged an extra penny per dollar.
The expansion plan has a ticking clock, as Comic-Con has signed a deal to remain in San Diego through 2015, but larger venues in Las Vegas and Anaheim have been lobbying organizers to look elsewhere. [NBC San Diego]
- January 25, 2012 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Comics A.M. | Teen sentenced in comics burglary; Reuben Awards adds webcomics
Legal
Legal | A teenager was sentenced Monday to seven years in prison for his role in the July 2010 theft of a valuable comic collection from an elderly Medina, New York, man, who later died of a heart attack. Eighteen-year-old Juan C. Javier, who pleaded guilty last fall to attempted second-degree burglary, is one of seven people whom police say were hired by businessman Rico J. Vendetti to break into the home of Homer Marciniak to steal his comics. Marciniak, 77, awoke during the burglary and was beaten, suffering only cuts and bruises. However, he had a fatal heart attack later that day. Eight people, including Vendetti and Javier, were indicted in November 2010; the indictments were dismissed against four of the accused so the U.S. Attorney could charge them with murder under federal law. [The Daily News]
- January 11, 2012 @ 07:15 AM by Kevin Melrose
Manga readers prefer print over digital
Tokyopop may be defunct as a manga publisher, but someone is still posting on its Facebook page, and it makes for some pretty entertaining reading. Because it’s Facebook, a lot of the readers are teenagers, and I think it is more representative of that segment of the manga audience than any other site.
So when whoever posts as Tokyopop asked, “How do you read manga — digitally or as a physical copy? Which do you prefer and why?” I was interested enough to tally up the answers. The responses were almost comically lopsided, with only 18 out of more than 250 commenters preferring digital; some said both, but the vast majority, almost 200, said they liked to read their manga on paper, not pixels.
Of course, what they mean by “digital” is online manga sites, almost all of which are bootleg. People read manga online because it is free and because it’s the only way to read series that haven’t been licensed in English. But they don’t like it very much. Complaints about digital included eyestrain, slow load times, and that you can’t keep the manga or take it with you. Many commenters simply said they liked the feeling of a book in their hands.
- January 3, 2012 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
‘That’s high class comic pirate rock n’ roll’
Following a request from a scanlator for unlettered pages from Skullkickers to make the comic’s translation into Russian easier, creator Jim Zubkavich has stumbled across re-lettered versions of two covers from the popular Image series.
“This one blows my mind,” he wrote this morning on Twitter, indicating the cover of Issue 8. “They even translated the signs around their neck.” He later added, “That’s high class comic pirate rock n’ roll.”
- December 8, 2011 @ 08:45 AM by Kevin Melrose
Jim Zubkavich responds to Skullkickers scanlator
Jim Zubkavich’s Skullkickers, a lively action-comedy series about two monster-fighting mercenaries, has been one of the success stories of 2011 in the North American market, and now it turns out to have overseas fans as well. Last week, Zubkavich got an e-mail from someone named Roman who is translating Skullkickers into Russian, then carefully cleaning the English words out of the word balloons and replacing them with the new text. Roman actually e-mailed Zubkavich and asked if he would be willing to send unlettered pages to make the job easier.
“I have no idea how to properly respond to this,” Zubkavich wrote on Twitter. “I mean, I can’t send him page art like that, but it’s just so damn bizarre.” Zubkavich noted that he owns Skullkickers (which is published by Image), so he knows there are no plans for a Russian edition. A fascinating Twitter conversation followed, with Cameron Stewart arguing for sharing the files — “it may be ‘piracy’ but I’d reckon the goodwill you’d get from authorizing it is significant” — and Indigo Kelleigh expressing reservations: “But politely point out that him giving your work away for free makes it difficult for you to enter that market legitimately.”
Zubkavich is still mulling it over, but he shared his e-mail reply to Roman with Robot 6:
- December 7, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Jim Zubkavich: ‘Please pirate my work!’
Most webcomics creators figure that once they have put up their comic in a free format that is accessible to everybody, they have done their bit. Jim Zubkavich is taking it another step: He just posted a PDF/CBZ version of the first chapter of his webcomic Makeshift Miracle, and he is inviting readers to spread it far and wide:
Download the torrent file, pass it around, re-seed as much as possible and convince your online friends to try it out, absolutely free. Once they’ve read chapter 1, they can come back here to continue the story with chapter 2.
While webcomics creators often promote their work on Twitter and in online forums, Zubkavich is taking it to another channel altogether. Torrenters have their own community, and getting noticed there will bring him new readers; he’s already getting some love on Scans Daily, which is probably not his usual audience. Beyond that, reading an entire issue of a comic at once is a different experience from reading an online comic that updates a couple of times a week. A lot of readers want to sit down and read a whole chapter at a time, and Jim is giving them that option. And if they like it, they can share it with their friends.
Piracy is a double-edged sword; it reduces sales of the comics that are passed around via BitTorrent, but it also brings in new readers. Balancing one effect against the other is a lot easier when you are giving the comic away for free to begin with. Obviously, Jim wants to drive traffic to his site, and ultimately he will be publishing a print edition of Makeshift Miracle that won’t be given away for free. And that will be the results phase of the experiment, when we see if his generosity now pays off in strong sales when the book is published.
- November 8, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | Ex-Marvel staffer says layoff protest misguided
Marvel
Publishing | Damien Lucchese, a production artist laid off last week by Marvel, explains why fans should not boycott the publisher over the layoffs: “What I’m trying to say is that I don’t want everyone to just see the MARVEL logo and think of a huge, top-heavy company, full of money hungry suits that make poor decisions (in some peoples’ opinions). That’s not what MARVEL is and there are still people working very hard (even harder now), day after day to put out comics for people to enjoy.” [Blog@Newsarama]
Digital piracy | Jim Mroczkowski posts his third interview with a digital pirate; as in the first two episodes, what comes through is that social pressures and one-upmanship have a lot to do with it. Also, piracy is expensive for the pirates, who usually buy the comics they scan—and often don’t even read them. [iFanboy]
- October 26, 2011 @ 07:00 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Viz goes full-on digital with new BL line
As the shape of the digital comics world emerges from the haze of uncertainty, readers are saying one thing loud and clear: “I want to own my digital comics.” And most publishers are sidestepping the whole issue by saying “We will gladly sell you a license to read our digital comics” and going no further.
So when Viz Media reps unveiled their SuBLime line of Boys Love (yaoi) manga at Yaoi-Con on Saturday, they made manga history: They will be publishing some titles digitally in a download-to-own format, according to manga blogger Deb Aoki, who was tweeting from the panel. The licenses will be worldwide, not restricted to the U.S. and Canada like Viz’s other digital releases. What’s more, the downloads will be PDFs, which can be read on a Kindle, Nook or iOS device as well as pretty much any computer.
That’s right: DRM-free downloadable comics, available worldwide. And the cover price on these e-books is a very reasonable $5.99.
- October 24, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Sailor Moon fans push back on manga piracy
Until Kodansha’s recent re-release of the first volume, Sailor Moon had been out of print in the United States for six years. What’s more, the original English-language edition suffered from many of the sins of early manga — bad translation, flipped pages, etc. Since it is, despite this, one of the most popular manga of all time, it’s not surprising that there are scanlations of it all over the web.
But when a Sailor Moon fan site linked to scans of Kodansha’s new edition, readers who clearly had no problem with posting scanlations were strongly critical of the site owner for linking to rips of an American edition. Here’s a comment that sums up much of the discussion:
This is so sad! The new books are really beautiful and it’s shame to rip them off this way. I understand why the Tokyopop translations were circulated because the copyright expired but this is very different. Really disappointing and I have to say I hope you remove them from your site.
But the person who posted the links, Elly, shoots right back:
- October 6, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | New lead in Michael George case; SLG’s digital priority
Legal
Legal | Authorities in Clinton Township, Michigan, tracked down two men mentioned in police reports by comics retailer Michael George after his wife’s 1990 murder who were never questioned. The judge gave police 48 hours to locate and question them. One of the men passed away, while the other, John Fox, will be questioned Friday about a family car that is similar to one seen near the comic book store where Barbara George was killed. [Detroit Free Press]
Digital comics | Heidi MacDonald talks to SLG Publisher Dan Vado about plans to release the company’s serialized comics digitally rather than in print. Vado reveals SLG’s popular Johnny the Homicidal Maniac by Jhonen Vasquez will be released in digital format. [The Beat]
Comics | Lisa Fortuner notes that this week’s Green Lantern Corps #1 story shares a title with a Nazi propaganda film: “That’s a beheading, followed by cutting a woman in half, followed by the loss of a finger, followed by a reference to an infamous Leni Riefenstahl film. For those of you who are new to the Internet and it’s population of history snobs, Leni Riefenstahl was an early 20th Century pioneer who made inroads for women in the field of Evil. She did a Nazi propaganda film called ‘Triumph of the Will’ which to this day is still inspiring horror of authoritarian power in film classes and museums. It is probably not the best choice of titles for a book where the main heroes are fueled by willpower.” [Written World]
- September 21, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by JK Parkin
comiXology glitch wasn’t source of pirated Justice League #1
From Justice League #1
ComiXology has confirmed it accidentally allowed a few users to purchase Justice League #1 on Monday and Tuesday, before the issue’s print or digital release. However, it appears the digital edition was not the source of pirated copies uploaded online as much as six hours before the official launch of DC Comics’ new flagship title.
While some commenters at Robot 6 and elsewhere on Tuesday pointed a finger at comiXology, Bleeding Cool conducted a side-by-side comparison of the digital edition and the pirated copy, and concluded that the source of the bootleg was the print version, which was slightly different from the digital release. ComiXology CEO David Steinberger had no explanation for the variation between print and digital editions, but he did say users who bought the comic Wednesday will be offered an update today to make the digital match the print copy. (If there were a way to re-sell digital comics, there would doubtless already be a robust market for the flawed early variant copy.)
Steinberger confirmed this morning to Robot 6 that three users purchased the comic early from comiXology, and that he had sent them the following e-mail:
- September 1, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Pirates get the jump on Justice League #1
The message posted at comiXology
Why are we not surprised? The digital edition of Justice League #1 goes live today at 2 p.m. Eastern (11 a.m. Pacific), but illegal downloads of the issue are percolating merrily away all over the Internet. The Pirate Bay shows a copy being uploaded at 4:10 a.m. GMT — that’s 11:10 p.m. ET Tuesday, 50 minutes before the print edition officially went on sale — and some other file-sharing sites have even earlier times.
As of 6:30 this morning, The Pirate Bay file had 210 seeders (people who have downloaded the file and are offering it to others to upload) and 23 leechers (people who are just downloading).
DC Comics has two things to worry about here. The first is that the first comic of the publisher’s biggest event in decades was available illegally more than 14 hours before the legitimate digital release, which raises the question of why the company is holding the digital release till so late in the day. To protect comics shops? Well, that failed. There will always be people who use illegal downloads because they’re free, but what DC needs to worry about is people who would pay for a legitimate download but grabbed the torrent first because it was up when they woke up this morning, and they could read the comic over their coffee. If you’re going to do digital, dammit, do it right.
The other problem is the response to the comic itself in the comment thread at The Pirate Bay, which was pretty negative. Although maybe that’s just a pirate-site thing, with people treating it with contempt because they got it for free, Comic Book Resources reviewer Greg McElhatton was also pretty lukewarm toward the debut issue.
- August 31, 2011 @ 04:30 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | Superheroes’ big-screen struggle for diversity; Z-Cult FM returns
Green Lantern
Movies | National Public Radio commentator John Ridley critiques Hollywood for being even less diverse than the Big Two when it comes to diversity in lead characters, and demolishes their blame-the-audience theory that white people won’t go to see a movie with a black lead by pointing to a study by Indiana University professor Andrew Weaver: “Weaver found that white audiences tended to be racially selective with regard to romantic movies, but not necessarily when it came to other genres. So, sorry, Hollywood. You can’t blame it on the ticket buyers.” [NPR]
Piracy | Comic-book torrent tracker Z-Cult FM, which was threatened with legal action by Marvel in 2007 and eventually shut down in 2009, has re-opened its virtual doors. [Facebook]
Creators | Becky Cloonan talks about the joys and the hardships of being a full-time comics creator: “Comics are hard work. Comics are relentless. Comics will break your heart. Comics are monetarily unsatisfying. Comics don’t offer much in terms of fortune and glory, but comics will give you complete freedom to tell the stories you want to tell, in ways unlike any other medium. Comics will pick you up after it knocks you down. Comics will dust you off and tell you it loves you. And you will look into its eyes and know it’s true, that you love comics back.” [Becky Cloonan: Comics or STFU]
- August 10, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Ken Akamatsu invites downloaders to do penance for their sins
Image from Akamatsu's announcement, presumably of a guilty party
It’s Lent, the time of penance and atonement, and manga creator Ken Akamatsu (Love Hina, Negima) is inviting file-sharers to purify their purloined manga. Anime News Network has helpfully translated his message of hope, which was originally posted in Japanese.
Akamatsu has been experimenting with online manga, and last year he launched a Japanese comics site called J-Comi that features out-of-print manga, including his own Love Hina. Akamatsu has gotten some of the big publishers to play along, but in Japan, the creators often hold the digital rights and they get to call the shots.
Now he has come up with an interesting twist that combines his business plan with private expiation of guilt: He asks readers who have downloaded manga illegally through file-sharing services such as Winny to forward the files to him. (Reassuringly, he says, “everyone has done this at least once.”) Interestingly, he also asks people who merely know of such files to go ahead and download them and send them to him. Akamatsu and his crew will contact the creators, and if they get the go-ahead, insert ads and post the files on J-Comi. All the ad revenue will go directly to the creator, J-Comi gets the benefit of the added content, and the downloader stop feeling guilty and start sleeping better.
If the creators don’t choose to play along, of course, nothing will change:
“However, if the creators do not give their OK, the files will be abandoned and the files will continue to drift through hell (Winny). Perhaps forever….”
- April 12, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Has pirated manga become ‘property of the internet’?
Akamatsu's legit manga download site
A blog called Welcome Datacomp has translated a discussion of manga piracy between manga creators Ken Akamatsu (Love Hina, Negima), Minako Uchida, and Kazumi Tojo that took place on the Japanese social media site Togetter about the prevalence of scanned and fan-translated manga on the internet. Akamatsu is experimenting with his own free manga site, but even so, he sounds pessimistic: “Am I too late? I get the feeling that [my project to release free manga PDFs] won’t be enough at this point.” He goes on to say
Hasn’t illegally scanned manga, propagated so casually like this, fallen into the category of “property of the Internet”? You won’t be able to eliminate it. The only thing we can do at this point is [launch our own free websites with the] “advertising model”. (Because charging people would be difficult.)
The most recent illegal scans are very high quality, and the translations are exceedingly accurate. (^^;) If there’s no respect for original authors on the net, then obviously the official versions will lose out.
The creators express dismay that people who would not shoplift from a physical store have no compunction about reading pirated manga; as Tojo says, “It seems like people will pay for things they can touch like vegetables, but they think it’s a waste to pay for intangible data.”
It seems like the creators are talking about both scans in Japanese, which are read locally, and fan-translated manga for other markets; they cite one example of a publisher being told by fans to change a name to the one selected by a scanlator. And there’s an interesting side discussion on the decline of the cell phone, which was once a popular platform for yaoi and erotic manga. As people switch to smart phones, the options dwindle: Apple doesn’t allow adult manga in the iTunes store, and Akamatsu says Kindle doesn’t either (I’m not so sure about that), but the fans reassure him that Android allows it, making that the platform of choice for ero manga fans.
- February 23, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by Brigid Alverson