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Blood Stained Comments on The Ethereal War
I've corresponded for some time now with Martin R. Oakley, comics creator and independent publisher of BloodStainedProductions, and our exchanges have drifted between virtually every subject discussed here at Flaming Sword. He is an astute and independent soul - and cousin of yet another good friend and colleague whom I correspond with regularly on a closed creator's forum - Batman artist extraordinaire, Norm Breyfogle. Martin commented on Steven Bové's The Ethereal Wars, presently running here and agreed to sum up his feelings about it as a creator and publisher, concerned at the indifference of the creator's community to internet piracy of copyrighted publications:Throughout the past year, as I have struggled to make BloodStained Productions a reality instead of a pipedream, I had to enter into realms of thought about publishing, copyrights, trademarks, and the infringements possible therein more than I would have liked to at the time. I have known obliquely about copyright infringements through file sharing before, such as the Napster debacle, and some of my friends in the publishing world talking about finding their work available through BitTorrent downloads on such sites as ZCultFM or Demonoid.com. I never really paid any attention to it though until I began reading THE ETHEREAL WAR posted right here on Michael Netzer's Flaming Sword Productions. Suddenly there was a comic book professional speaking on these issues that many such as myself have taken for granted. Legalities that seemed blurry before unless we were speaking on my own titles that BloodStained Productions will be publishing, suddenly became clear. /*This online file sharing of scanned Comic Books is piracy.*/ Even in an article written by a scanner for scanners and leechers (those who download) it states that the scanning and sharing of comic books is not just blurry legal ground, but is in fact illegal. Whenever you look at a book that you have bought, you read in the indicia (copyright statement) that "No parts of this work may be reproduced in part or in whole without the express written consent of the publisher and/or creators". (Taken directly from the BSPRD indicia) This clearly states that ANY reproduction without the express written consent of the publisher and/or creators is a blatant violation of the copyright. That means anyone who's trying to say that they're DMCA compliant! The DMCA supports copyrights in WHOLE! Just saying that you'll remove the torrent or file from your site isn't enough. You shouldn't even have posted them in the first place. What surprised me more than anything was the even split of indifference between creators when it came to this issue. Some said "It's only going to be good for the industry in the long run", while others stated in various different ways "As long as it doesn't directly affect me, I don't care.". This low key attitude towards piracy and copyright infringement surprises me in many ways, mainly because some of these who spoke the words above, or some such variation, were also signers and proponents of THE CREATORS BILL OF RIGHTS! Interesting isn't it? So in response, as both a publisher and creator, I can only say that I would certainly hope that this industry can and will awaken to the destructive possibilities of online file sharing and begin to prosecute those who display a flagrant disregard for the law. Martin R. Oakley BloodStained Productions http://www.bloodstainedproductions.com In an earlier private correspondence, also brought here with Martin's permission, he expressed a creative response to the eventuality that he might find his work being freely distributed on the internet: If I came across one of my books on a website available for free to anyone, I'd definitely have a discussion with that person. Perhaps have him/her post only the first few pages of the book with a link back to my website to buy the whole thing. I'd like to see how that would work out marketing wise ya know? Not a bad thought, actually. BloodStained Productions. Have a look.
Permalink Posted: 10:03 AM EST
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