I completely agree that fans should be as civil they expect the pros to behave. Most are, I think. A significant minority of fans and pros have issues, and a sub-set these of these are awful. Unfortunately, the loud, rude/troubled minority always drown out the rest. The internet has made it extraordinarily easy for the loud, rude minority to trumpet their rudeness, and it has also made it easy for ticked off pros to retaliate.
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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Date: 2009-03-02 12:20 am (UTC)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.