The Outhouse - The Greatest Comic Book Forum

by **S.F. Jude Terror** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 9:49 pm

fieldy snuts wrote:I hope she tells Mark Waid that she illegally downloaded Kingdom Come and Irredeemable

Or better yet, Bill Willingham that she downloaded Fables from a torrent site and loved it.

I hope she tells Mark Waid that Stephen Wacker is unprofessional. She'll be eating out of a straw the rest of her life.

/oldrama2006'd

by **fieldy snuts** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 9:55 pm

S.F. Jude Terror wrote:

I hope she tells Mark Waid that Stephen Wacker is unprofessional. She'll be eating out of a straw the rest of her life.

/oldrama2006'd

Yeah, that's why I picked his name. Good time

by **S.F. Jude Terror** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 9:57 pm

fieldy snuts wrote:
Yeah, that's why I picked his name. Good time

That was the thread that first got me posting on newsarama (in defense of Waid, because fanboys were being giant babies threatening to sue him for making threats at them :roll:

).

by **fieldy snuts** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:06 pm

S.F. Jude Terror wrote:
That was the thread that first got me posting on newsarama (in defense of Waid, because fanboys were being giant babies threatening to sue him for making threats at them ).

He probably didn't pick the best words professionally, but his sentiments were totally understandable and anger justified to the point where any beatdown to be issued was deserved.

The guys at DC still regarded him as a close friend and knew about his jump to Marvel....and internet fanboys jump in calling him a traitor/disloyal/money hungry and a Marvel saboteur. Like guys coworkers know less than frustrated fanboys :lol:

by **LobsterJ** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:07 pm

stephen whacker is a totally repellent prick, though. you should go read his posting history on cbr jude, you'd love the guy.

by **BlueStreak** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:09 pm

S.F. Jude Terror wrote::lol: My post was all over the place. Comics have a loyal fanbase. These aren't like music fans that might buy a band's album every year or two and go see a show when they tour. Comic fans spend 4 bucks a pop each and every month on multiple products, a much higher ratio Iof consumption to available product than any other industry. How many people buy every album put out by the music industry? How many watch every TV show? There are at least a few people at every LCS who simply have a standing pull for every item on the shelves.

These people will continue to support the industry and pay for their books. Stop being pussies about it and make the books available as restriction-free as possible. Comixology isn't too bad. But it could be much better.

For the record, I'm not stating that the digital distribution couldn't be better. It could. We need lower price points on digital comics and a better distribution system. However, saying that However, piracy isn't going to be magically fixed by making comics available online for free nor will it make some of the underlying issues that I take issue with go away.

As the SDCC Batgirl points out, piracy is always going to happen. People are going to download their comics for free no matter what. Pretending like piracy will go away by releasing books on a Hulu like website or that piracy will go down is laughable. Did movies or television piracy go away with advent of Hulu? Hell, no. It didn't even make a dent. Let's not kid ourselves and pretend that it did. Did it make content more readily available? Yup. Does it provide some secondary income to TV stations. Yup? But, it hasn't saved any shows near cancellation nor has it decreased piracy rates. Have TV on DVD sales gone up after Hulu showed up? Nope. Have more people been watching these shows on a nightly basis? Nope. For the last three years, Community, despite being one of the top Hulu'd shows, barely makes the cut to keep it. Chuck, another show with high Hulu value, has been last minute saved every year for the last five.

I have no problem saying that you want free stuff. I find it laughable when someone says that the only way to prevent theft is to give it away for free. People are going to steal no matter what. One time, I caught a guy trying to "steal" 200 razors that my old store was giving away as part of a promotion. He was stuffing them down his pants and made a break for it when I saw him. Don't pretend that "taking charge of handing out free content" will somehow take the power away from the thieves. Nor should thieves try to justify their actions by saying that "If it was free, I wouldn't have to steal it". It's a bullshit statement.

by **GLX** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:12 pm

BlueStreak wrote:One time, I caught a guy trying to "steal" 200 razors that my old store was giving away as part of a promotion. He was stuffing them down his pants...

I bet that felt pleasant.

by **fieldy snuts** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:15 pm

LobsterJ wrote:stephen whacker is a totally repellent prick, though. you should go read his posting history on cbr jude, you'd love the guy.

I appreciated his frankness. He's not an asskisser that shamelessly pandered to the people that constantly insulted him. Prior to him leaving 52/DC the general consensus was positive.

So he took little shots in jest at people on the internet...it's not like he went into their homes and sodomised them with rolled up copies of OMD.

by **S.F. Jude Terror** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:18 pm

BlueStreak wrote:
For the record, I'm not stating that the digital distribution couldn't be better. It could. We need lower price points on digital comics and a better distribution system. However, saying that However, piracy isn't going to be magically fixed by making comics available online for free nor will it make some of the underlying issues that I take issue with go away.

As the SDCC Batgirl points out, piracy is always going to happen. People are going to download their comics for free no matter what. Pretending like piracy will go away by releasing books on a Hulu like website or that piracy will go down is laughable. Did movies or television piracy go away with advent of Hulu? Hell, no. It didn't even make a dent. Let's not kid ourselves and pretend that it did. Did it make content more readily available? Yup. Does it provide some secondary income to TV stations. Yup? But, it hasn't saved any shows near cancellation nor has it decreased piracy rates. Have TV on DVD sales gone up after Hulu showed up? Nope. Have more people been watching these shows on a nightly basis? Nope. For the last three years, Community, despite being one of the top Hulu'd shows, barely makes the cut to keep it. Chuck, another show with high Hulu value, has been last minute saved every year for the last five.

I have no problem saying that you want free stuff. I find it laughable when someone says that the only way to prevent theft is to give it away for free. People are going to steal no matter what. One time, I caught a guy trying to "steal" 200 razors that my old store was giving away as part of a promotion. He was stuffing them down his pants and made a break for it when I saw him. Don't pretend that "taking charge of handing out free content" will somehow take the power away from the thieves. Nor should thieves try to justify their actions by saying that "If it was free, I wouldn't have to steal it". It's a bullshit statement.

That's because hulu fucking sucks. Music piracy went down though when iTunes became a viable option for downloading music. Most people will pay for a product that is available to purchase. The problem every industry has had with the digital age is an inability or refusal to make their products available.

Like I said, piracy has always been around. It didn't put the software industry out of business. But with stuff like Steam for games and the availability of pretty much all software, your average person will pay for a fairly priced product.

However, if people can't get what they want legally, or can only get an inferior version...

by **BlueStreak** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:23 pm

S.F. Jude Terror wrote:
That's because hulu fucking sucks. Music piracy went down though when iTunes became a viable option for downloading music. Most people will pay for a product that is available to purchase. The problem every industry has had with the digital age is an inability or refusal to make their products available.

Like I said, piracy has always been around. It didn't put the software industry out of business. But with stuff like Steam for games and the availability of pretty much all software, your average person will pay for a fairly priced product.

However, if people can't get what they want legally, or can only get an inferior version...

I'm going to be honest, as a college kid during the iTunes age, I never saw a real dent in piracy because iTunes was around. Just about every kid in the dorm had BearShare or Limewire or some other filesharing program. If the music industry is losing less money, god bless them. I figured it was because of stuff like Pandora more than iTunes.

In terms of digital comics and whatnot, I actually have a really cool idea. We got an email from a digital comics company who wanted to do an interview with us. Guess what the interview is going to be about? :lol:

by **flexmentallo** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:25 pm

BlueStreak wrote:
For the record, I'm not stating that the digital distribution couldn't be better. It could. We need lower price points on digital comics and a better distribution system. However, saying that However, piracy isn't going to be magically fixed by making comics available online for free nor will it make some of the underlying issues that I take issue with go away.

As the SDCC Batgirl points out, piracy is always going to happen. People are going to download their comics for free no matter what. Pretending like piracy will go away by releasing books on a Hulu like website or that piracy will go down is laughable. Did movies or television piracy go away with advent of Hulu? Hell, no. It didn't even make a dent. Let's not kid ourselves and pretend that it did. Did it make content more readily available? Yup. Does it provide some secondary income to TV stations. Yup? But, it hasn't saved any shows near cancellation nor has it decreased piracy rates. Have TV on DVD sales gone up after Hulu showed up? Nope. Have more people been watching these shows on a nightly basis? Nope. For the last three years, Community, despite being one of the top Hulu'd shows, barely makes the cut to keep it. Chuck, another show with high Hulu value, has been last minute saved every year for the last five.

I have no problem saying that you want free stuff. I find it laughable when someone says that the only way to prevent theft is to give it away for free. People are going to steal no matter what. One time, I caught a guy trying to "steal" 200 razors that my old store was giving away as part of a promotion. He was stuffing them down his pants and made a break for it when I saw him. Don't pretend that "taking charge of handing out free content" will somehow take the power away from the thieves. Nor should thieves try to justify their actions by saying that "If it was free, I wouldn't have to steal it". It's a bullshit statement.

Out of curiosity, how exactly do you know it didn't make a dent in piracy? I'm personally unaware of any studies that are currently keeping track of what the piracy levels are like these days, nor am I aware of how one would go about conducting such studies in the first place. It's not exactly the kind of thing people will usually admit to when questioned. I know you've pointed out that you like to oversimplify things, but this is kind of silly.

You're putting words in the mouths of the people who disagree with you by stating that our argument is that releasing things for free is going to solve piracy-- it's not, and no one thinks that, that's an impossible task and everyone concedes that. The point is that free distribution is proven to be effective across a number of mediums; just look at the shareware boom in PC gaming in the '90s, which was an entire industry built on giving things away for free in order to build interest. The argument here is whether free distribution models can increase interest in a product and whether they can push a portion of downloaders away from illegally obtaining that product. And given consumer psychology, as well as how past and current forms of this distribution have fared, the answer would seem to be yes-- people do in fact prefer to obtain things the legal way and free product can in fact garner interest. If even a hundred people move away from downloading something from the Pirate Bay to downloading from DC directly, that's at least two hundred more eyes on advertising, and the rest of what DC is pushing. And considering that places like Hulu continue to expand, it would seem that experiments in other mediums with this kind of distribution system are working and working well and are at the least drawing in advertising revenue that is at least somewhat sustainable.

by **fieldy snuts** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:28 pm

Oh yeah, on the subject of illegally downloaded comics....the problem is that there is a total lack (literally) of freebies or other promo material to get fans interested without having to fork out a fair bit of money to judge the product for themselves.

Sure illegal downloading might open the doors for new people to get interested in comics but from a realistic aspect illegal downloads have a history of carving out a fair share of the consumer base in the long term. How many of us buy CD's at stores or even DL albums from itunes anymore instead of jumping on a torrent or file sharing site to check it out? Ditto with video movies/tv shows/porn in this era oh high speed ADSL2+.

Here's the difference between comics and those other media: comics are a drastically shrinking market that hasn't expanded in close to a decade and has shed over half its market in 5 years. It simply isn't big enough to sustain a proper balance of illegal downloads and actual consumers in its current structure. Doubly so with the lack of consumer awareness who quite frankly don't give a shit about the franchises outside of the video games and movies.

Once people have a steady, reliable source for their illegal consumables they're more likely to stick to that than buy the retail thing. And the comics market is one of those in a worse position to cope with this due to the digital comic system being in shambles.

I personally reckon they should've started compiling for the better part of this decade scans of as many back issues as they could into a database and charge reasonable monthly/weekly/yearly fees in plan packages like a netflix price model to access it. It's not like there's lots of trades dedicated to entire 60's/70's/80's/90's AND the new runs in color...a lot simpler that doing remastered omnibus editions that only diehard fans will be getting. Both the big 2 have humungous catalogs of memorable, varied runs that they can exploit but they're more interested in hot shotting new stories with media releases.

So yeah, keep paper for today's stuff...but for stuff over a decade back, make it all digital and use that as a hit/rating counter to see what's hot to know just what to put out on the stands. Balance out both the print and digital to equal prominence.....to me who knows about a ton of runs throughout the years it just feels like a waste that the digital alternatives are so limited when I just know there's so much that's been written that more than deserves a chance to be easily accessible for new people who you know won't even buy a trade. It won't eradicate the illegal comic scans that are running wild, but it will somehow carve out part of that market.

Just my $0.02 on how illegal scans are hurting the market, why they're succeeding in doing so and how the current business model is ineffective on combating it.

by **S.F. Jude Terror** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:38 pm

BlueStreak wrote:
I'm going to be honest, as a college kid during the iTunes age, I never saw a real dent in piracy because iTunes was around. Just about every kid in the dorm had BearShare or Limewire or some other filesharing program. If the music industry is losing less money, god bless them. I figured it was because of stuff like Pandora more than iTunes.

In terms of digital comics and whatnot, I actually have a really cool idea. We got an email from a digital comics company who wanted to do an interview with us. Guess what the interview is going to be about?

As a college kid in the itunes age, you came of age just as music piracy was at its peak with napster. Your generation is unique, probably. Napster, when it first came out, was wildly popular, and while the music industry thought it was because "holy shit this music is free," I don't think that was the factor. Because music was ALWAYS available for free. You could tape it off the radio. You could download it from IRC. The thing that made it different was the availability - every song ever available at a whim. It changed the world.

Itunes is very successful, and that wouldn't be possible if people didn't buy shit from it. On the other hand, shit like limewire faded away. Itunes offered the same availability as napster, but legitimate. I think most people would rather go with the safe, legal, guranteed quality, legitimate alternative over the illegal one. Unless the illegal one is vastly inferior.

Now I don't think legitimate digital comics are vastly inferior. They do some things right, like DC's day and date, and the trouble the providers go through to make the reading experience wotk on various devices.

But a year or two ago, it was woefully inferior, and I think that, more than anything, led to the massive rise in comics piracy.

by **Russ Burlingame** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:43 pm

Fieldy, she already did something nearly as begging-for-trouble: In the middle of a piracy-justification conversation on Twitter she retweeted something unrelated from Ron Marz!

by **fieldy snuts** » Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:51 pm

Russ Burlingame wrote:Fieldy, she already did something nearly as begging-for-trouble: In the middle of a piracy-justification conversation on Twitter she retweeted something unrelated from Ron Marz!

But would Ron Marz threaten to go to her house and beat her up? :groucho: