Actually, you could eat okay for the cost of Photoshop. But yes, theft is theft and I'm certainly not going to explain it away (especially since the theft we're talking about here isn't the *actual* food to feed that kid).

Are you a hip hop fan? Rap albums (I still call them albums, and sometimes I slip up and call them records, and I ain't even that old) nearly doubled in length when inner-city kids bit the bullet and finally embraced CDs. Not a hip hop fan? Imagine that music you hate, only twice as long.

The pirates I know aren't poor at all, simply working class with no hope of becoming wealthy (American dream my ass). I just meant that they couldn't afford the software they wanted. $600 for MS Office? My ass.

I'm weird; I hate capitalism, but I *want* to pay for things, if only because experience has shown that people are more willing to do a good job-- or are more able to do a good job-- when you pay them. I just wish I could afford to.

(When were CDs cheaper? For a brief period in the early- to mid-90's I believe. My theory is that the prices may have dropped when the gov't was threatening to do a price-fixing study on the industry. But I just came up with that a minute ago. You can still find them, new, for under 12 if the artist sucks or the album's old; but used is fine for me.)

Be warned, I wrote another damn book here... free time today.

Hey, when the hell did I say "abandon copyright protections"? Hmm, maybe Barlow implies that, but I don't believe in doing that at all. I believe that individual creators should retain all rights, and be able to protect them effectively as they see fit. The thought is more like "dissolve the concept of your ideas being controllable things that you hoard for sale" and find different ways of "controlling" and "selling" them.

The control that exists now is NOT on the ideas. It's on the objects on/in which the ideas are reproduced -- that's the only practical way to apply it. Although copyright law is supposed to protect the idea itself, that is a non-tangible thing, which can't be physically protected. Therefore the actual most effective control is on the MEDIUM that expresses the idea for the most part.

For example, I can go play my songs anywhere, in the park, at a bar, at your house... this is an "intangible," you can't actually "grasp" the performance, it's a fleeting thing that is "witnessed" rather than "owned". And of course no one can stop me from doing this. Administration of live performance and radio play of music is handled by ASCAP and BMI, not the record labels, and I have the right to perform my own songs whenever I please to do so. My songs are copyrighted by the record label, but they are still WRITTEN (and credited as such) by ME.

However, if you record my performance with a tape deck or camcorder, NOW you have a physical object - the tape - that embodies my performance. And that object has been the actual thing that the law can control. Making that tape of me performing certain of my songs without the permission of my former record label makes you a CRIMINAL. Further, creating copies of that tape for your friends to enjoy also makes you a criminal - whether I personally give you permission to tape me or make copies or not. (And Nat might advocate your immediate prosecution, heh.) I do not own these songs and cannot authorize you to record any performance of them nor distribute such recordings in any way. By doing so, you infringe the label's copyright, and open yourself up to lawsuit and prosecution.

The same would apply to me coming over to your house and drawing, say, an ElfQuest character. I'm allowed to do sketches like that by permission from Wendy (she's nice). You can watch me draw it. I can give it to you as a gift. You can even sell the original on eBay, not that it's worth much if I draw it. BUT, if you make even ONE Xerox of it, you are infringing WARP's copyright/trademark and they can prosecute you. So, the law applies to the PHYSICAL COPYING of the original.

Now, up until digital storage of media became reality, this makes absolutely perfect sense. The only sorts of copies that existed WERE physical copies. OKAY, right, if, say Marvel did a licensed comic adaptation of Star Wars, and I did my own unlicensed one, I'd be infringing Lucasfilm's copyright, and the law would protect Lucas' ideas in that sense. But I'd have to create a PHYSICAL WORK for it to be a problem. Similarly, I could record a song that sounded a lot like Led Zeppelin (viz. Kingdom Come, Whitesnake), but I couldn't put a BAND together and call it Led Zeppelin and put out CDs calling it a Led Zeppelin song -- copyright and trademark law prevent that theft of "idea" and "identity".

But we're now talking about a narrower case than that: the quick, direct duplication of digitally stored media, and distribution of such duplicates via the Internet. I think that just like the borders of America were porous to illegal booze during Prohibition, and are still porous to illegal substances today, that the Internet and digital storage are going to make UNWORKABLE what was once a CONTROLLABLE (and profitable) physical distribution network. In doing so it will also require a reexamination of how we define "ownership" of "ideas" and created media. I don't think it's a movement, or a cause, or a revolution, or a battle to be fought; I just think that the practical realities of the situation are going to make it impossible to continue in the mode we're in now.

I want to say a quick word about enforcement, to respond to Nat. While I do think that it may indeed be possible for enforcement authorities to put in place mechanisms by which the transmission of files can be effectively monitored and therefore illegal copying could be curtailed or stopped, I equate this with Orwellian control tactics. Such measures would need to track EVERY SINGLE PACKET OF INFORMATION FLOWING THROUGH THE WEB AT ALL TIMES to be effective. This IS practically possible. However, do any of us TRUST ANY government or enforcement agency enough to allow them to do this? This would be equivalent to forcing every printing press and photocopier in the country to have a cop standing next to it, monitoring every single thing that was being duplicated on it for copyright infringement. Does that make any sense to you, Nat? I'm sure it COULD be done, but that would be a gross violation of everyone's rights as guaranteed by the US Constitution (a document in which I believe very strongly by the way). While that would certainly cut way down on illegal copying, it would simply be WRONG. Effective, but extremely dangerous to us all. We pay for our freedoms in many ways, Nat, and one of those ways is that our laws cannot be perfectly enforced. Copyright is one of those laws.



Okay, well, are you willing to let the police follow everyone around, and enter anyone's house or business at any time to see if any laws are being broken? Would you want the police to assign one cop per street gang member, to walk around behind them 24 hours a day to make sure they don't buy guns or kill anyone? How far will you go, Nat? I realize I'm going to the extreme here, but there are limitations to law enforcement. When you say "increase the likelihood or prosecution" as related to digital distribution, you're giving advocacy to something like I mention above: total monitoring of the Internet to make sure people aren't making illegal copies. Here in America, we don't do it that way; you need to show evidence that a crime is being committed, and then prove the accused's guilt in court.

And there is of course a mechanism by which you could zap my Factor-copying ass. You'd have to file a lawsuit against me in Federal court, and show proof that I infringed your copyright, and then you could take all my stuff. Even under the present law. And that would suck for me (so I wouldn't do it)! But, there would STILL be 5000 copies of The Factor.pdf out there, which through the "I tell two friends" effect have probably turned into more like 50,000, or even 500,000. What are you going to do then? The tribbles are in the quadrotriticale, my friend! 1,771,561!

Even if they shut down Napster, the MP3 files are all still out there. They're not going to be able to go after 28 million people, period, no matter what you would like them to do, Nat, any more than they're going to set up stationary radar guns that automatically ticket everyone who speeds (tho this is in fact possible). The fact that BMG has made a deal with Napster is TELLING. They're cutting their losses and wisely trying to get a piece of that pie. (The artists still won't get paid.)

It's not all right to steal, Nat (nor murder, how dare you imply that I would think so). But the definition of what is "stealing" depends on what is defined as "stealable". I don't think that the concept of "copies of created works" being stealable property is going to survive the Internet, and we're going to have to work out something else.



Okay, better stated. However, this can only interfere with your ability to sell and make a profit if the copies are something that YOU can sell for a profit. Digital storage, reproduction, and distribution via the net is going to render that practically impossible, since by definition once one digital copy gets out there millions can be made for nearly nothing. There are now millions of cost-free copies of songs out there via Napster. So, the concept of selling copies becomes moot, the concept of making a profit from copies becomes moot, the concept of someone else making copies of your stuff for profit becomes moot... we may all be forced to let go of the idea of making a profit by selling copies of our creations -- NOT by choice, but by the realities of the situation. I honestly don't know whether that will be bad or good; Barlow's article points out lots of potential positives. I like to be optimistic, but it's far too early to tell what's going to happen. My general feeling is that freeing up ideas and creations and allowing everyone access to them is a good thing, going by the examples of open-source software, which seems to be doing well and getting better. Note that tho Linux is free for anyone, several companies are trying to make money by packaging other services around it. I hope it works; the fact that MacOS X has a freeware core kernel is illuminating to me! We'll see how that works out tho... could go either way.



Gee, I bet you were really jealous with your toys when you were a kid.

Ribbing aside, this seems awfully foggy to me, Nat. I grant that by doing this I have removed an option from your marketing plan. It's been clear for a while that you are absolutely adamant that you retain control over your creations, and what you say here is even more evidence of a control mentality. You seem to only want people to be able to read your books... WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE ALLOWING THEM TO DO SO? That's pretty damn stingy in my opinion... Personally I'd like my work to be seen all over, and hopefully to be enjoyed. Then people come asking me, hey, what else you got, dude? THEN I can sell them something. I think you're taking that particular control issue too far, and stubbornly ignoring -- for the sake of getting every dime up front, right now -- how just throwing it out there can help build your audience and therefore increase your potential living.

And notice that I said "to people who WANT it," as opposed to "random webfolks". These would be people who are INTERESTED in your work, and through seeing a full story example, might buy the whole stack PLUS your TPB when it comes out. In that case, well fine, you didn't get paid the $14,750 up front for 5000 copies of Factor #1; however, if 1000 of these interested folks buy your whole stack of comics... you make the same amount of money. [img]/resources/ubb/smile.gif[/img] Yeah, it's all hypothetical. But you might wanna loosen up a bit when you do gear up for your TPB promotion. For me, I just wanna get Mystic For Hire out there in front of everyone, and I'll worry about trying to make money with it later. I don't mind sharing my toys for a while.

Oh, by the way, a couple years ago, you generously gave me a full set of The Factor comic books, which I enjoy very much. (I have not made copies of them, nor will I.) Should I give them back? Should I pay you for them? Should I not show them to my friends? Was that a marketing move on your part? I want to clearly understand how you look at this.



A little more music trivia, just so we all know the deal: When I signed my contract, it says in plain English inside that I don't get royalty payments for more than 10 (ten) songs per "album". That's right, even if I put on 14, I only get paid for ten (10) songs. Probably doesn't make a difference unless there are more than 10 hits on the record, but still. This may have changed... However, this one has not: NOBODY, but NOBODY, gets paid royalties on "Greatest Hits" collections. Which is why labels love them: guaranteed money. You'll note that recently artists have been including new material on Greatest Hits collections -- thus filling up that extra 20-odd minutes; that way they can actually try to get some royalties for the sales of that album (if the labels deign to pay it to them). One small benefit of digital tech. But I digress, as usual.



Yeah this is more in line with what I'm saying, tho the Beatles are an extreme example since they made tons of cash in SPITE of the depravity of the music industry, because they were bigger than Jesus (ha ha).

However, I think that "practical ownership" IS important - but to me that phrase means the creator hangs on to all the rights. I think our copyright law is dreadfully flawed, and that its flaws directly contribute to creators being treated unfairly in a number of ways (not surprising seeing as the law was created in Congress which is influenced by lobbyists for large media corporations).

Sure, we'd all like to be rich, and we'd all like to get rich from doing our creations, and also to receive recognition and praise for them. UNfortunately, especially here in America with our excessive worship of "celebrity," that "I wanna get rich and famous" thing is carried to an unhealthy extreme. As we've discussed, there is a mindset among creators that "I MUST do my creation and NOTHING ELSE to make a living, and it MUST make me wealthy, because lots of other creators are getting rich, and I'm as good or better than them! I deserve that!!" This, IMHO, puts creators at a serious disadvantage, since of course the big media people KNOW this and COUNT ON IT in order to manipulate creatives into giving up control of and claim to their work -- for PROMISES or POSSIBILITIES of riches. They absolutely DEPEND on this for their living! And the present state of copyright law allows them to exploit that mindset quite ruthlessly, by forcing creators to give up their protections, willingly, in order to have the chance to get rich and famous. It's worse in some businesses than others tho, since writers/novelists usually get nice advances AND royalties AND still retain the copyright on their work!



Please don't misunderstand, I'm not trying to force this on anyone. I do believe that the way the Net works is going to engender some of these changes in a more or less "natural" sort of way, and that's what I'm talking about here. Kind of the same way that reality engendered changes in the Prohibition law; they couldn't stop people from drinking -- even though it was a CONSTITUTIONALLY PROSCRIBED FEDERAL CRIME -- and in fact it laid the groundwork for today's biggest crime organizations (not to mention the Kennedys), so they abandoned it. By the way, Nat, had you been alive during that era, would you have been as adamant about the prosecution of bootleggers and speakeasys as you are about duplication of creative material? Not a challenge, but I'm curious.

While I don't necessarily think it will happen as fast as JPB does, I do think that the developing nature of the web, permitting fast, easy, high-quality duplication of, well, anything digital, will drive an evolution in the ways that created media reaches its audiences.



I couldn't tell him that either. Barlow suggests that the ethics will improve because it will be GOOD BUSINESS for them to do so. Well... it's a hopeful thought to me but I'll wait and see on that one. However there ARE things that we creators can do to HELP foster more of that -- by, as I've said all along here, NOT SELLING OUT. NOT BEING GREEDY. NOT GOING AFTER THE FAST $$ BY TOTALLY GIVING UP CONTROL OVER WHAT YOU CREATE. If we creators make it difficult or impossible for these middlemen out there -- which is all that a publisher of any kind is -- to get their hand on the "things" they sell to people, then they will be forced to deal with us differently.

As long as we creators feel that we have to suck up to big money and play the game their way to do what we love to do for a living (see my earlier posts about the "rock star" factor), then we will continue to get shafted, Net revolution or not. There are people out there starting to make this work, and there will be more.

When you give up your rights to something in order to have the big company you've sold it to try to sell it big and then (hopefully) pay you a piece of that, you are GAMBLING. And so are they! You are actually gambling that THEIR BIG GAMBLE is going to pay off BIG, without you having ANY control over it! Quite a risk, don't you think? And if they screw it up you don't get it back for another try. So doing this is literally like rolling dice or playing roulette -- with EVERYTHING YOU OWN. If it hits, the payoff MAY be huge. But if it doesn't (and as always the odds are heavily weighted against you), you lose it all and have to start over from scratch. And even if the gamble pays off, it's abundantly clear from the long line of creator "gamblers" out there who have been ripped off that you'll likely only catch a few coins (if any) dribbling out of the money sacks.

What the hell kind of way is that to make a living with your creations? Vegas style? This is what we are dealing with, and I for one don't accept that this is how it should be.

Does anyone here understand that when I say "Give it Away" I don't mean, just get a day job to pay your bills and draw/write/play just for the love of it? What I mean is, HANG ON TO YOUR STUFF and carefully, slowly, surely build your OWN audience for it! DON'T do things the gambler's way, at least not to that unhealthy extreme... it's always a gamble putting creative stuff out there for people to see. Just don't do it because you wanna be a "rock star". Maintain control of your stuff, build a relationship with your audience. KEEP ALL THE MONEY FOR YOURSELF. Be greedy in that way. [img]/resources/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

Anyway...



Uh, but Nat, why did they hire you to write the book in the first place? Were you on top of the duty roster that week? Are you Monkey #347,922? Did they just grab you off the street, "Hey, you look like a computer guy, write this manual for us."? Somehow, I just don't think so. I suspect they hired you not only because you can write, but because you knew the subject well enough to write clearly about it. Does this not make sense? Could you have written the book in the first place, writing skills being a given, had you NOT known about it?

By the way, how did they know you could write? Lots of good writers out there Nat, how come they hired you? What "product" did they buy? It's not like they could pour wood pulp and black ink into a machine, and have the Idiot's Guide magically appear, now is it?

I put to you that it's clear that they bought your expertise, or at the very very least your writing skill, the FRUIT of which is the book. As you say, it's tough to even assemble an infinite number of monkeys, let alone get their rights, so it's a good thing for them (and for you!) that you are the one guy that they can depend on to write the book. While the monkey theory is entertaining, it's not reality; a smart person is required to write the book. They're making copies of what they could not have done without your brain, and selling them.



Bad example, Nat. The Backstreet Boys (and other boy bands) were put together by some impresario-type guy -- a "patron" if you will, but of the arts... eh? -- and sold lock, stock, and barrel as "commodities" to a record label. The individual members of these boy bands had their "talents" assembled funded, and fostered by this "patron," who made a huge amount of money from exploiting them.

Lots of bands have a sort of patronage attached to them: mom and dad let them practice in the basement, buy them equipment (if they have the money), allow their kids to pursue their musical career (instead of forcing them to get a job or go to college). This happens with a lot of comic-book artists by the way! It's not the same as old-school PATRONAGE, whereby the Duke(?) became the benefactor of Mozart (and we all have benefited from that), but it amounts to the same general sort of thing. Barlow makes this point, and doesn't confine "patronage" to the old-school rules.



Um, could be because Microsoft pretty much included a copy of Word on every Windows machine that got sold? Most people I know who use Win machines don't even know that Microsoft Windows, the OS, and Microsoft Office, the application suite, are separate entities. When you own 95% of the desktops of the world, you get to dictate standards. WordPerfect, Lotus and other previously popular WP/office suites were unable to compete with bundled MSOffice. Bad, bad example, Nat. I want a specific example from you of a software company that was put out of business because their software was pirated extensively.



I agree entirely. Only hardcores will do it. Hell most people don't burn copies of music CDs, even though the equipment is easy to get. It's easier to BUY them, and CD sales have been booming the last 3 years, despite Napster. But...



And even digital copies of comics originally NOT delivered via the Net. Look, I'm looking 5 years down the road here (maybe 10) where handheld wireless displays/readers/interfaces WILL be able to duplicate closely the experience of reading a printed comic book (or regular book for that matter). Right NOW it's inconvenient to view "classical" comics on your monitor. But it won't always be that way. Soon that end-user part of the loop will be up to speed; at that point the difference between a print book and a downloaded e-book will be negligible, and that's when this will really come to a head. When it's easier and just as enjoyable from a reading standpoint to go download X-Freax #399 from Comicster.com and read it (at actual printed comic size) on your handheld PADD -- as it is right now to download JoeRocker's latest album from Napster and jam to it on your Rio -- then going to the comic shop will become less attractive in many ways. It won't even make much sense from a business standpoint to print the comic book, that costs too much! THAT is the point at which what's going on in music now will affect US. Many of us here will still treasure printed comics (I don't think they'll just disappear entirely of course), but the economic advantages of digital distribution will drive the shift. It will simply become economically nonviable to reproduce creations on discrete physical media like books or CDs, just like it doesn't make economic sense to reproduce books on stone tablets or etch them on steel plates.
Nor does it make sense to hire 1000 mathematicians when you can hire one mathematician and one programmer to set up a computer to do the calculations of 1000 mathematicians. This is the kind of shift we're talking about here! The computer has revolutionized a great many things that people do, and is continuing to do so. It has redefined the roles of millions of people and rendered obsolete thousands of processes and methods of doing things. The digital phenomenon is now in the process of overturning the entire method by which stories and creations are disseminated among the population, and it's going to change everything whether we like it or not.

------------------
Jeff Zugale
Pagan City Comics www.pagancity.com

[This message has been edited by Jeff Zugale (edited 12-14-2000).]

Well, I don't have time to write a book myself today, so I'll quickly hit the easy spots...
Not aggressively. Got a few disks, and will take a passing listen to things at time, but it's not my first resort.
Still a good name, because they are an album of songs. It doesn't mean what it originally did; apparently; earlier on, records held less, and you were likely to get a book of record sleeves, one recording in each sleeve.
I don't see the price as unreasonable, for the function it provides. However, if price is a problem, there is always StarOffice!
On to Jeff:
Then whhy be bothered by comments which are my response to the Barlow article?
Because you're dealing with music, which is covered by all sorts of wonky laws, many of which exist to strip control away from the creator. If you've released a recorded song, you can't stop me from releasing a cover of it; copyright has ceased being copyright and fallen to merely being profitright in that case. These same laws do not apply to comics.
See, we agree on some things!
Not true. Broadcasting is also copying, even if it doesn't create a permanent form. It's as much a copy as a data stream is.
And we need do this no more than we need to have every single person being stalked in order to discourage murder. No, we handle murder by arresting a visible portion of the people who commit it, detecting it after the fact. Does this eliminate murder altogether? No, but it does serve to keep the murder rate down to the point where most of us can live our lives without spending every moment worrying about being murdered. And while I doubt we can ever totally eliminate piracy, I expect we can keep it down to the level where it has a fairly small effect on the ability of folks to earn their livings with their creations.
I'm doing nothing of the sort, and I defy you to find one actual statement supporting such. I doubt you'll find anything here that suggests legally-imposed prior restraint. Rather, you'll find that I've advocated prosecution for those who have already committed the crime... and there's plenty of ways of finding out when that has happened. Do you know of people who have pirated music via the internet? I sure do. And if I can find out who they are, I truly expect that some would surface on the radars of the cops, and of the copyright holders.
Only if you're dumb enough to try to legally defend yourself when you get snagged.
I am gonna make a fortune off the lawsuits then! And maybe then most of the would-be thieves will realize that it's a bad idea to copy stuff like that.
Not only is it possible, it's similar to what is done in certain locations, with folks running red lights automatically being photographed and charged.
Oh, there's logic for ya... it can't be copyright theft if there's no chance of a profit, and there's no chance of a profit because there's copyright theft. But despite those grandiose theories, there are indeed people who make an income from their work, and may be able to make some more income it there was a willingness to prosecute the thieves. But, of course, if I dare suggest prosecuting thieves, I must be some sort of ugly fascistic totalitarian...
If by that you mean that I prefered that a bunch of folks didn't storm in, steal all my toys, and kidnap my little sister, gee, then you'd be right. But I guess I don't think of my creative effort as being equal to a mass-produced Rock'em, Sock'em Robots set, nor do I equate maintaining my rights to my work against unknown thieves with sharing my game with a friend.
I want them to be able to when they have legal access to a physical copy... access that I have certainly allowed by releasing the material at all. I don't want to see someone who, because they have a scanner, thinks they have as much right to my work as do I, after I've poured inspiration, effort, and thousands of dollars into this work. I don't want to see them ripping off my collaborators, with whom I went to long efforts to deal fairly and squarely with.
And gee, aren't you an ass for saying so? Oh, let me guess: it's oh so horrible when a record company or publisher deals contractually with an artist, and you'll wail and moan for hours about it, but when some random shmuck breaks the law in order to screw a comics creator out of his rights, then woe be to the creator who doesn't smile and do a jig, eh?
Oh, that's bull, pure and simple. If you'd bothered to pay attention, Jeff, you would have seen me often trying to promote the concept of creators choosing to put something out there, in some way, for people to try and sample. But if I dare suggest it should be the creator's choice, well gee, then I must be stingy, stubborn, and ignorant. Heaven forefend I should believe in and value creators' rights...
Now remind me why we haven't seen an issue of MFH for a while? Oh, that's right--it wasn't bringing in enough money.
As long as you're not reproducing them, you should feel free to do whatever you please with them, up to and including lighting them on fire or shoving them up your ass. (I'm a little too polite to suggest that you might do both, in that order.) The physical property there belongs to you. The intellectual property belongs to me (and my collaborators), so I wouldn't suggest making a multi-million dollar movie of The Factor until you consult with me...
Gee, the Beatles did seem kinda happy when 1 took its titular spot...
Well, if I'd been alive during that period, I'd have been a different person in a lot of way, we can reckon (I doubt I'd be writing computer books, for one)... but I suspect that my attention during Prohibition would be more on eliminating the victimless crime law, much as it is during the current War On Happy People push.
I have written books about products that I had never used (or even heard of) before being given the assignment.
The content of a book.
Ridiculous. I still have my expertise (such as it is). I still have my writing skill (such as it is). They have the book material, in some cases with full rights in perpetuity, in some cases with limited rights to publish it.
Nope. When I buy a loaf of bread, I don't care how much skill the folks running the dough-sloughing machines have. I want the bread itself.
You're running headlong into the difference between patronage and investment, a vital difference in your discussion. I sincerely doubt that the guy behind the boys was doing it for the greater glory of the boyband scene...
Not 'round the world they don't; when you're putting together a system to sell someone in Vietnam, you generally don't want to tack on the extra charges that Microsoft charges for including Word. Of course, now if there wasn't pirated Word, you'd probably see more reliance on StarOffice in such countries (if indeed it's available in the local languages; I haven't checked what it's been translated into.)

Yet, you will equate copyright infringement with murder. Twice. You've passed reactionary and are creeping up on stupid...



That thing works like the programmers were asleep and wearing mittens.



Which is sort of the model Jeff's talking about, no? Sun's not worried about their copyright because (I imagine) they're hoping to get people interested in their other services. They'll take the hit this way in the hopes of making up for it later.



How would you do this if people were going directly p2p, not using any central servers the way Napster does?



Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't pirated artists still make money?



Now, why is it no one prosecutes all that tape copying that constitutes a "violation of applicable law"?

No, never. Nowhere have I said that they're the same morally, ethically, or logically. I did make an exagerated example of some logic. And I did use murder in an example showing how law enforcement works -- which is equating law enforcement with law enforcement.
Gee, if you can't be bothered understanding what you read and instead result to insults, how about you go hang around some K00l WAREZ 2 TR8DE board and leave this one to the grown-ups?

Folks manage to get arrested for things such as child porn, despite not going through central servers (not that I agree with every method used in that fight). There are pirates who talk about what they do, brag about what they do, and do it in various public ways including doing it on corporate equipment. An awful lot of crime gets detected in this world without constant monitoring of every moment that a crime may take place. (Let me guess; now that I've used another form of media-transfer as an example in the discussion, I'll be accused of saying that copyright infringment is the same as sex pictures of 9 year old girls...)
I was addressing Jeff's depiction of the coming days. If you have questions with Jeff's depiction, ask him.
Which tape copying? If you're talking non-commercial tape copying of music recordings, that's effectively legal. You can't prosecute over it, thanks to a a strange and ugly law that the music industry got pushed through Congress in 1992.

I believe that you too are misunderstanding some of what Jeff's saying. I don't think he's advocating the dissolution of copyright, which is what you seem to infer.



If you'll notice, Jeff took issue with this the first time you mentioned it as well. But, if my opinion's in the minority, and everyone here thinks calling someone an "ass" and mildly suggesting they shove things up theirs is grown-up, then I will indeed park mine elsewhere.



Are you having a bad day? You want some tea? How about a hug?



Aside from his opinions of how we should handle coming changes, do you think he's correct? If copyright law isn't changed to reflect digital realities, are we in for more rampant infringement? Because, if we are, then Jeff's suggestion that we take advantage of it-- rather than a)wail about it without doing anything, or b)wait and hope and vainly pray that the law will be rewritten to benefit creators-- seems a sensible one.

Probably, if we don't work at enforcing the laws that are already on the books. But there is still a vast gap between "more rampant" and so complete that selling creative material for profit will be "practically impossible", as Jeff puts forth.
Goes far beyond suggestion. He attacks me for having one work which I would not be automatically happy about having stolen.
Have I been arguing against anyone ever giving stuff away on a promotional basis? Of course not. Hell, I've given a lot of my works away, some with promotion in mind, some with simply the desire to add to the public experience. I cowrote a reasonable-selling book on MP3, much of which was about using MP3 as a promotional tool. Mark Lewis and I let people use our character, Mister U.S., for free in their own work with only a handful of simple conditions.
Beyond simply "put the stuff out there", Jeff's advice gets quite fuzzy. Jeff talks about giving some things away to build customers for other works... but if you hold even one work back, you're stingy. Jeff points to an article filled with a mixture of dubious pie-in-the-sky and an attitude that its okay to expect popular creators to have to do something besides create for their money.
I think any creator who abandons a path of likely sales of his intellectual property (and note the "likely" clause; I'm not saying all intellectual property holders) for that pot o' gold that is over there should be aware that not only is the trip treacherous, the existence of that pot o' gold is greatly in doubt.
I also believe that the more creators that take the public attitude that there is something wrong with creators protecting their rights, the harder it will be for anyone to earn a living creating.

But I'm still in the dark as to what you would do (in addition to stiffer fines) in the face of these predicted changes. How do you think you as a creator could make this work for you? Or, rather, turn it around to work for you.

I don't have time to write anything more than this today, but this pissed me off, so I'm going to respond rather hotly:



Nat, you're 100% wrong, and you really pissed me off by saying this. The reason why you haven't seen any MFH for a while is NOT because it wasn't bringing in enough money, because we DID NOT EXPECT IT TO DO SO RIGHT AWAY ANYWAY.

For your information, MFH has been on hold because of my OWN PERSONAL FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES and JOB-RELATED TIME MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS. And that's it, brother. DON'T EVER make that mistake again.

When I moved out to LA, I was trying to do freelance art and graphics to support myself while doing MFH for publication. It worked out well at first. Then at SDCon '98, I met Wendy and she asked if I wanted to do an ElfQuest story. I said great, and went to work on it. However, between the freelance graphics, ElfQuest, and MFH, I got screwed up with my money -- clients didn't pay me on time, I got behind financially, had to take on more freelance work that I knew would pay, and that took up more time, and I got behind on EVERYTHING. It all fell apart, and I was unable to continue doing it; it got to a point where I either needed to declare bankruptcy or get a good day job.

Luckily, recruiters started calling me that very week, so I took the day job. And MFH is on hold for a while as I rebuild. THAT IS THE STORY. DON'T make guesses, Nat, you're smarter than that.

I don't see you making a living off The Factor, no matter what TV rights you've sold off. If you know so much, why are you forced to write Idiot's Guides to make your money? I'm at least straightforward about my own difficulties as an attempted freelancer, and handling working a decent day job as I get myself retooled to do MFH again.

We knew that MFH wasn't going to be a financial success right off the bat because we weren't going to be able to do big marketing with it. So, I'm going to do it for the love of doing it, and I'll worry about whether it's going to pay me later on. I already went thru the "wanna be a rock star" bullshit, and I see it for the hollow empty shell that it is. Better to keep my creations and love them than hand them off to assholes. Meanwhile, we will NOT be printing it in comic books because we now know it's a WASTE OF MONEY since we can't market it properly. So we'll put it on the web for free and see what happens later. We can always go to print whenever we want.

Can't believe you upchucked that one, Nat. I take it personally.

------------------
Jeff Zugale
Pagan City Comics
www.pagancity.com

Gee, Jeff, I was just going off your description of events to me in the past... and your description here sure seems to match them. You're talking about time and money problems... and even the time problems come from taking other work, which you admit to doing because you needed pay... things you wouldn't have had to do if MFH brought in enough.
If you can honestly tell me that if MFH had been bringing you $100,000/issue, you'd not have had more issues out, then I'll apologize.
And I've never claimed otherwise. "Forced to" is a rather odd term here, particularly considering that I'll probably never write another Idiot's Guide. The Factor is just one of many things I've done in the creative realm, it's creatively satisfying and a long-shot gamble financially, and I balance out such projects with spending some percentage of my time on projects with surer money and somewhat less satisfaction. And I don't blink twice before saying that if The Factor had brought in more money, there would not only have been a TPB already (instead of coming sometime next year), but further self-published comics as well. There probably still will be such self-published materials eventually, but they will likely be just part of the mix of things that I do.
So would I be right in saying that we're not going to see printed issues of MFH because it doesn't bring in enough money?
Before you get too offended, you may want to consider just how you've been treating me in this thread.