My Brief Thoughts on the Scans Daily Mess

I don't actually have that much of an opinion about Scans_Daily's demise. I wasn't much of a part of the community, though there were a few series I probably would never have read if not for it.

I do think blaming Peter David for the demise is pretty stupid, and I say this as someone who isn't very fond of his work and becomes less and less so the more I read/"hear" him talk.

Ultimately, even if Mr. David DID exactly what the rumors said and reported S_D to Marvel...well, honestly, it's still not his fault S_D got deleted. Ultimately, S_D was posting a lot of scans of material, protected by copyright, in a manner that the owners of said copyright had a problem with. S_D was punished because the members of the community violated copyright, as well as Livejournal's Terms of Service.

And, pardon me for being elitist, unless you have a law degree and are willing to take it to court, I'd avoid bringing up Fair Use at all. Whether you're right or wrong, it only matters if you can get the court to agree with you. Otherwise, you're SOL either way. (And honestly, current precedent really isn't in your favor.)

(Oh, and since I've seen some intelligent people bring up the argument: there's a significant difference between posting scans of a comic and posting a plot summary explaining everything that happens in the comic and how it rocks/sucks. Yes, both can equally spoil a reader of plot developments, and yes, both can negatively or positively influence sales of a comic.

The difference is that plot summaries do not actually involve the unauthorized distribution of product held under someone else's copyright.)

Though I have to say, in the end, I'm not sure what good shutting down the community really does. I mean, sure, for every person who claims that the community got them to buy X or Y, there are probably ten who aren't buying much of anything and just use the community to keep up to date/denounce all current company outlook.

And I don't really think that uploading half a comic on scans_daily gives anyone higher moral ground than someone uploading a comic book on bit torrent for example. Piracy is piracy.

But even acknowledging that those are probably true, I don't think shutting down the community is going to change anything. Heck, the replacement "asylum" community's already up somewhere. Those people who use scans_daily and don't buy comics will find some other way to pirate and not buy comics. It seems pretty futile to me.