Oy! Scans Daily MADE comics fans!

[neotoma]

Someone unknown got 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.

Comments

[strangemuses.livejournal.com]

I guess that the "difference it makes" is that in the first instance, the post wasn't violating the free use clause of copyright law and therefore, there was no grounds for suspending the community. In the second instance there was a violation of copyright law.

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.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that 10 percent constitutes fair use, so half is way beyond the pale, but I could be wrong about that.

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.

[strangemuses.livejournal.com]

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.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

The OP is to blame if s/he violated community rules and thus gave people something to report. 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.

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.

[strangemuses.livejournal.com]

I completely agree that the LJ admins who pulled the plug without checking bear the ultimate responsibility here. The S_D mods would be wise to set up shop elsewhere. They can't use the IJs long term because the IJs cap community membership at 1,000, and S_D had (I believe) about 8,000 members.

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.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

It's my understanding that 10% is the fair use standard for review or educational purposes, but I obviously haven't looked into the issue as much as you have.

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.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

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 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.