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scans_daily deleted off LJ for copyright violations. One of the mods explains what they currently know, and asks for everyone to refrain from pointing fingers.
However... if it was the work of an industry insider, that person is STUPID -- I've bought twice as many trade collections in the last six months than I did in the three previous years because of stuff I saw on scans daily. It was a wonderful way to get your friends into comics, because you could show them intriguing little bits.
Fortunately, there is an IJ asylum that can be utilized.
scans_daily deleted off LJ for copyright violations. One of the mods explains what they currently know, and asks for everyone to refrain from pointing fingers.However... if it was the work of an industry insider, that person is STUPID -- I've bought twice as many trade collections in the last six months than I did in the three previous years because of stuff I saw on scans daily. It was a wonderful way to get your friends into comics, because you could show them intriguing little bits.
Fortunately, there is an IJ asylum that can be utilized.
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And, psst - you're mising the final "l" off your link.
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One of the mods is saying it was copyright infringement. Whether Peter David reported it as such instead of abuse...well, who knows.
I'm just depressed. So many years of great discussions, so many memories, wiped out.
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comic book resources (http://www.comicbookresources.com/)
newsarama (http://newsarama.com/)
Those are ones I know off the top of my head that cover a range of things from every company. Not to mention the individual company websites and the individual sites/ twitter feeds, etc. of various creators.
Or, for instance, the
Things these communities have in common would be lack of pirated material and lack of telling creators to die in a fire or fuck off. (Okay, the latter two probably happen on newsarama or cbr message boards, I can't vouch for that.)
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Nor do they discuss Superdictionary.
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I do think fandom communities tend to find ways to survive.
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...and that's terrible.
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And I know the newsarama & cbr message boards are every bit as bad as what i dislike about s_d.
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There was a lot of brat-entitlement there, but it also just worked for me better than a lot of the comics boards and comms. (a lot of them only discuss the new issues, and vague references to events that don't make any sense if you haven't already read it.) At scans daily I could look at scans and decide which trades to ask the bookstore to order for me, or getting interested in a character I'd never heard of in a fic and running over to flip through the tags to get his backstory. (or just find out what he looks like, but the 'you don't have to describe characters because everybody reading the fic is already a fan' thing is a whole other rant.)
I'll miss it.
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I promise I will not be buying as many comics now, simply because I'm too old and busy to bother with Wizard and other places for recs. ScansDaily gave me a preview that let me decide what was worth buying. The alternative with be to read only webcomics and buy nothing.
Whatever insider reported this, it will be their loss...
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What a jerk!
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How is he the asshole? If you honestly believe this, you need a reality check.
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Peter David reported Scans Daily to Marvel legal because he didn't want anyone posting scans that "spoiled" the surprise ending to his recent issue of X-Factor. He admitted this himself in a comment he he made to S_D.
Look here for a copy of Peter David's comment: http://schmevil.livejournal.com/161736.html?thread=878024#t878024
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This is my belief, and it is not changing.
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And I'm sure he'd be happy to have his content banned.
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I certainly have bought records from bands I would have never heard of through my normal channels because someone posted an mp3 and said "this is great!" -- when I downloaded it and found I agreed, I bought the album -- and attended the concert if there was one in the area.
I certainly sought out and bought the first three Blue Beetle trades, two JSA trades, an Elseworld trade, the Thor hardback, the Runaways hardback, and the Xmen First Class hardback because of stuff I saw on scans-daily. So that's about $250 in 6 months that I wouldn't have given to Marvel or DC without that comm. If even 5% of the viewers of scans-daily (not the members, just the casual viewers who flipped to it once or twice a week) did something similar, that's probably a good chunk of money.
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But until and unless there is a better study of the industry, I am going to keep thinking that it rather like the recording industry, which has a wonderful history of antagonizing fans.
Scans-daily was integrated into my fannish life because it was on LJ. It was very conveinent because I didn't have to sign up for and track half a dozen websites.
The only site that I've found at all useful as a comics fan is the IGN comics division, and even then I found it badly organized and almost useless for looking up older trades and storylines -- which is something that scans-daily excelled at.
This is why I've started searching out the Mark Waid run on JLA and on the Flash, after all -- I'm building a library of older trades, and favorite writers and artists, and it's been an interesting shift because there are stories (JLA: Divided We Fall, for example) that I would not have known about without an LJ comm that promoted them.
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But it won't do things like get me interested in THOR, or let me know something like TINY TITANS exists. Scans-Daily did that.
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That's just going by the regular comments that were always posted. Many people have posted how it got them back into comics, got them buying comics again, got them buying comics they wouldn't have bought otherwise. It seems like if you wanted to actually read the comics it would just be frustrating to only read part of it.
Mostly I'm sad because I loved the conversations there. I liked being able to discuss the comic that just came out. Not that every comment was brilliant or anything, but I got into a lot of conversations I loved there about characters, art etc. Also it was nice having people who could explain things, which I think also encouraged people to get into comics they wouldn't have understood otherwise.
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Most of DC comics for me, and THOR from Marvel (I learned that JMS was writing THOR via scans-daily).
I wouldn't have even HEARD about Agents of Atlas without it, and now I am a total Jeff Park fangirl.
and decide to start buying it again when they see it's getting good.
Yup, the various Xmen books go in cycles, depending on who is writing. I like to know when the titles get worth reading again.
I liked being able to discuss the comic that just came out.
And comics that were older than I am. The posting of old comics was one of the great things that I loved. It was a great resource.
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As is it, wherever the community lands, I think PAD's comics will be expressly forbidden.
ought to think about their civility and have no right to bitch and moan when they dig their own grave.
Can we bitch and moan when 95% of played inside the rules, and still get stuffed into a grave, to steal your metaphor?
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PAD admitted himself that he called in the Marvel legal department sight-unseen and complained that the entire issue had been posted, and only went to check for himself after the fact. His ire was fueled by the fact that people discussed his "surprise" ending because he feels that this could affect the sales of his book. I'll leave it up to PAD to decide that fan discussion of his work will cause him to lose sales, but regardless, he misrepresented the situation to the Marvel legal department without bothering to check out the situation first. IMO, that was an incredibly stupid thing to do. I'm sorry that he ended up getting insulted by a rude fool once he did post in the comm, but that is irrelevant to the fact that he misreprsented the situation when he called in the Marvel legal department.
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Also, if he was mistaken when he made the report, the responsibility falls on whoever was doing the investigation, not on David. And if I recall the phrasing of the orginal post (basically, "ha ha Peter David you don't want us to spoil your comic we're going to do it anyway) he was well within his rights to be upset. Not that the poster was obligated to follow his wishes, but the way they failed to do so showed disrespect for him as writer and a person.
I don't actually agree with the idea that writers are required to be mature adults but fans can be as nasty and juvenile as they want. Civility goes both ways.
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I don't believe that fans MUST adhere to a pro's request that spoilers not be revealed. Politeness would dictate that people not reveal spoilers openly (and in this particular instance the spoilery info was behind a cut which abides by standard Netiquette), but there is absolutely no reason why fans cannot discuss them in a public forum. Once a work has been released, its fate in the public belongs to the audience, not the author, no matter how much that author thinks that he/she can dictate how fans think about/talk about the work. Authors do not have the right to tell their readers, 'you may only talk about this in a manner that I approve.'
I think this instance was a huge sequence of unfortunate events. The OP posted the extract of the comic out of enthusiasm and admiration for PAD, in the hopes of drumming up more interest in the book. (Ironically, this is PAD's own stated intent because sales on this book are not good.) Unfortunately, people started to mock the story and once this was linked over onto a larger forum that PAD was familiar with, he retaliated. He conflating the mocking of his story with mocking of him personally and he got into a tit-for-tat flamewar with some of S_D's more idiotic members. The rest is history.
I think that he over-reacted and is as much to blame for the result as the the people who flamed him in S_D. I don't blame the OP at all. Marvel and DC themselves routinely release several pages of teaser scans. There is no legal "fair use" standard, but if Marvel/DC are anything to go by, then "fair use" is easily 5-7 pages because they do that themselves every single month.
The only difference here is that the OP also discussed the spoiler ending which was well within her rights as a reader. If you browse over on Newsarama or CRB or other sites that are officially tied into Marvel/DC marketing, far more detailed spoilery discussions are routine. Most pros don't really care. PAD is an exception.
Personally, all I want to know is who reported her post to Photobucket. That's the only part of this entire situation that remains unclear to me. It's a moot point now. I'm just curious if PAD did that too (the timing was the same as his report to Marvel legal). It doesn't change anything. I'm just curious.
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Aside from that, I can agree with you that there was not- great behavior on each side, but LJ bears the ultimate responsibility. Either there was a legitimate legal/TOS issue and they rightly took it down, or there wasn't and they overreacted. Whatever the case, all PAD could have done was report that he thought there was a problem.
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I can't speak about the legal/TOS implications but Marvel and DC can release as much as they want because they own the copyright.
They own the copyright, true, but there is a fair use aspect of copyright law that says that others can extract/exhibit parts of copyrighted works for reviews/discussions. There is no legally defined fair use standard for comics, so the behavior of the big two sort of sets a defacto standard until something actually goes to court. In this instance, PAD himself isn't even disputing a fan/reviewer's right to print extracts of his work. What he objected to in this case is that the post revealed the spoiler ending of the comic, and that is something that he personally "forbade" fans from discussing.
It didn't violate fair use in a legal sense. It violated established, known standards of behavior. That sounds like splitting hairs, but legally there is a difference and in this case, the way PAD handled the situation very likely resulted in S_D being suspended. I do think that S_D should have cut back the number of allowed pages a long time ago. Too late for them now.
Had this been a clear-cut case of copyright violation, I would be 100% on his side. I used to work in publishing. I regard the rights of the creators and copyright holders quite seriously. I just think personally, in this case, PAD was wrong in reporting this as copyright violation and most definitely wrong for mis-reporting it and stating that the entire issue had been scanned. The horrible fans who mouthed off at him were also wrong.
I just finished reading all of the comments over in his blog, and I've discovered that I was incorrect in one thing. Buried in the comments, PAD states that he did look at the post before he reported it. He didn't report it sight-unseen. That's better in one sense, but it makes a lie of his statements that S_D posted the entire comic.
It's all just too damned bad for everyone involved.
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And even if Peter David deliberately lied about how much was posted -- to give the benefit of the doubt, he might have been upset and been mistaken -- then whoever took his word for it rather than investigating is at fault.
It will be interesting to see how this resolves. If somebody wants to take this as incentive to start a slash-friendly, female-led comics discussion forum that's not predicated on dubious use of copyrighted material, and that doesn't defend name-calling and general nastiness as part of the culture, I'd be the first in line. I'm not holding my breath.
And I'm sorry to those who did not have the experience with S_D that I did. People say that good discussion came out of the community, and I believe them. It was a big community, I didn't take part in all of it, and I'm sorry if by letting my negative impression of a few bad apples poison the whole community for me, I missed out on things.
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I agree with this 100 percent, btw, and if PAD had contacted Marvel legal and said 'fans are talking about my work in a way I don't like' he would have been laughed out of the office. Nobody is saying that this is why SD was taken down. Maybe that was his motivation for reporting what he thought was a legitimate TOS violation, but so what? If there was something to report, it doesn't matter why he did it.
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If he can't take fans criticizing or being rude, David shouldn't have been anywhere on the internet. Fans who come to cons and signings might make him think fandom is all about the adoration, but anyone could tell a creator that fans online are anonymous and feel free to comment negatively on creators and their works.
When I post something I create, I'm happy if the positive comments outweigh the negatives and if I don't like what someone has said in an online community, I delete the comment or notify the mods if appropriate. David did neither thing, and punished a whole community for one fan's bad and immature behavior to him or because of "spoilers" for a comic that was already available for purchase.
BTW, half of the comic he wrote had been posted, but not all. It could have still fell under current copyright standards if brought to court. He seems more upset on the spoilers those scans contained, which is crazy since spoilers on ANY comic are available online the day comic shops receive the issue, if not sooner (check any comics forum).
You think what you want, and I'll continue to believe that a com that had existed for over 5 years deserved a chance to make changes to appease the copyright holders and creators before being shut down. But I'm sure a "cease and desist" notice from Marvel scared LJ senseless.
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But what I can't believe is that it looks like an industry insider was the one who complained -- if that isn't shooting yourself in the foot, I don't know what is.