Digital comics and piracy have been a hot topic over the past week, starting with Mark Waid’s speech at the Harvey Awards last weekend. His main two points: copyright is a balance between the creator and society, and file sharing is here to stay – so the industry is better off harnessing it instead of futilely trying to destroy it.
At Newsarama, Vinnie Bartilucci sums up the fallout from Waid’s speech, then asks the key question: can piracy become profit? He draws the obvious comparison to the music industry, in which MP3 sharing sites gave way to a legitimate market spearheaded by Apple’s iTunes store, and considers how digital distribution changes the market.
Finally, at Comics Alliance, David Brothers is frustrated with the comics industry’s overly-cautious approach to digital comics. The time for dancing around the issue is over — just kiss digital comics on the mouth, already! Instead of sabotaging their own efforts for fear of what will happen to the paper market, he argues that the industry should jump in with both feet and take advantage of the opportunities that digital distribution will bring.
This is ridiculous! Okay, so I personally will not be able to take advantage of the new medium as I don’t have high-speed, but still…
If it hadn’t been for free websites, I’d have purchased the JLU-animated and that would have been the end of it.
If they don’t follow future trends they are going to be left in the dust. Hardly any new blood are going to discover that they love comic books unless its on the Net and is CHEAP to get. They don’t know the characters (heck, I don’t know most of the characters) and won’t be willing to pluck down $3-4 dollars for an unknown at either a brick and mortar store or online. But make it $1 (with a preview page or two) and that’s pocket change…worth the risk. Every industry needs new blood or that industry will die with the last generation that hugged it close.