Daredevil Message Board

[Darediva]

I'm well aware of the photocopying problems too, Gloria. It's only because many of these stores now have stricter guidelines that I don't lose my entire livelihood, ie. creating quilt patterns that I publish and sell, to the people who think that since traditional quilt patterns were freely passed around among friends and neighbors that it is their inherent RIGHT to slap my patterns on the copier and give them to fifty members of the local quilt guild. I surrendered my membership to one group, because no one else in the group would recognise that what they were doing was cheating the persons who went to all that trouble to draft, write instructions, make the prototype, and then publish and distribute those patterns.

I print my patterns by photocopy. The place I use to do this KNOWS me, because I am a regular. They KNOW those huge stacks of paper I'm taking out of there are things I myself own the copyright on. They give me no hassle whatsoever, although they do check to see what I'm doing, for which I am grateful.

On the other hand, I will also fax a letter to any copy place that my clients use so that they can resize the patterns THEY HAVE PURCHASED legally to meet their end needs. It costs me little if anything, and the good will goes a long way. It resolves the issue of copyright and releases the copy store from liability on that particular instance.

Back to comics. I happen to have a fairly complete set of all the issues of DD. What I don't have in the very early issues are covered in the Essentials volumes, so I can still read them on demand. I happen to like to hold the comics in my hands to read them, rather than off a screen. A fairly Luddite approach, but one with which I am comfortable.

Honestly, artists and writers are a lot more savvy to the ins and outs of contracts these days, as they should be. Contracts are there to protect individuals from the ravages of the corporations, not just to give everything to the corporations. We would not have seen a lot of stories or art if things were always left up to the individual. Especially in pre-internet times, when it cost a lot of money just for work to even see the light of day. Now, internet publishing is very possible, even for people without huge piles of cash.

Case in point: webcomics. Here is a great example:
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/divalea/cc/series.php?view=current
Lea Hernandez has released Cathedral Child online for everyone to read for free! You can read her reasons for doing so here: http://divalea.livejournal.com/ I certainly applaud her for doing this. However, she also has written a very good book called Manga Secrets that she sells. She DESERVES to be paid for that intellectual property. It's called royalties. She doesn't make 100% of the profit, of course. Someone else foots the bill for printing, distributing, and selling the book. They each get a piece of that pie. It's how things work in the brick-and-mortar world. That's the world of which I have been speaking. The internet changed a lot of things.
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Alice




Those who throw dirt merely lose ground.

[vtsoxfan7]

[Gloria]

[james castle]

Wow, look at all the pretty capitalists.

Look, IP laws exist. That's fine, I guess. Most of us live in unabashed capitalist countries. What do you expect. However, that doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy pirated material.

For one thing, as far as I know enjoying pirated material isn't even illegal (as in criminal). Producing and selling pirated material is a criminal offence in most places but just having a copy isn't.

It is, however, "illegal" in the sense that Marvel could probably sue you. Which is fair. See, this is the thing about capitalism. It's all about rights and everyone being out for themselves. There is no moral backbone to it. I'm not saying that in a "capitalism is bad" kind of way (even though I believe it is), I'm saying it in a "this is how capitalism works" kind of way. In theory capitalism works best went everyone makes their own independant choices.

So say I chose to download some DD (which I don't because I can't be bothered). That's a choice I make. Does Marvel have the right to sue me? Probably. If they do then fair is fair because they have the right to sue me and I have voluntarily taken on the risk of being sued. If they don't sue, then that's their choice. If they don't sue there's no way I'm going to feel guilty about it. I've made my business choices and they've made theirs. That's the name of the game.

What I don't get is people being "proud" of not violating corporatations' IP rights. That's insane. It's business. That's all. If you find your self emotionally or morally wrapped up in capitalism it's time to consider whether you've had too much Kool Aid.
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JC

So why can't you see the funny side?
Why aren't you laughing?

[Francesco]

Ah, at last an intellectually correct view.

well, minus the nonsensical sophistic exercise about the "they don't sue you so it's correct, and if you think otherwise it means you're somehow proud/enthusiastic with capitalism".

[mhs_111]

*double post*
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sun tea

"...I don't have sixth sense
I just don't have the fifth."~Virge

[mhs_111]