My Take on Piracy (For What It’s Worth)

Digital Piracy has been happening to the music industry for close to a decade, movies for at least five years, and now in comics in (what some people may think) recent times. More often than not, the issue eventually devolves into justification for or against piracy. And usually the argument on the anti-piracy side is based around morality.

“You’re taking money from creators!”

“You’re ruining the industry!”

“You think you’re entitled to everything you want!”

“It’s wrong to steal!!!”

My response to that is simple:

It. Doesn’t. Matter. What. You. Think.

Piracy is going to happen, regardless of whether you think it’s morally right or wrong. So shouting into the wind isn’t going to solve the issue at hand.

Am I advocating piracy? No I am not. I’d love it if everyone got paid for the work they put into their creation, whether it’s Marvel/DC or a self-publisher. Hell, I’d personally love it if my book wasn’t on torrent sites. But it is. The simple undisputeable fact is piracy exists. It will not go away no matter how much people may try to wish it. No amount or moral or rational posturing will change that.

It will not go away. Period.

“So, ” I can hear you say, “you’re saying that we should just give up, roll over, and let the pirates have their way!“

No I am not.

What I am saying is taking the moral path to solving the issue is not going to work. Or at least it hasn’t thus far. As has been seen on many many many message boards and comments sections, any moral stance against piracy will be countered as passionately and vociferously as those that are for piracy. I’m even willing to go out on a limb and say to those that decry the end of the comics industry should piracy reign supreme, that the pirates do not care. Should comics cease to be, the truly hardcore pirates will move on to another form of entertainment. And those that were casual comic book fans and would torrent the occasional issue will also simply move on. Ruining it for the rest of us, yes, but they will simply find something else to do, watch, or read (possibly illegally as well).

This is why I’m saying taking a simply moral stance on the issue isn’t going to work. So what should we do?

I was once told that there is no one way to break into comics. I’d say that the same could be say for dealing with piracy: there is no one solution. I will say, though, that finding the solution has to be dome more pragmatically than morally.

There will always be a percentage of people that will always pirate, no matter what you do or say. There will also always be a percentage of people that will never pirate a single thing. That leaves a wide range of people who could easily be swayed one way or another, depending on how the issue is handled. It’s how these people are treated that decides how the pendulum shifts one way or the other.

This is where I say there needs to be a more pragmatic approach:

• Why would these people entertain the notion of pirating a comic?
• What would convince them otherwise?
• What are they looking for in a digital release?
• Would they accept Digital Rights Management? Why or why not?
• and so on…

From there, it’d could hopefully provide information that could be then used in a means to attract pirates (and potential pirates) to get their comics through legal channels instead of their current ones.

Would this approach solve the Great Piracy Problem? I don’t know. I wish I did, but I don’t. What I can say is, the current approach of just saying “IT’S JUST WRONG!!” doesn’t seem to be curbing the problem. The comics industry needs to give people a good reason to buy their digital comics and not to swipe them off of torrent sites, instead of just telling them why they shouldn’t.

Because they’ll do it anyway, no matter how wrong you may think it is. And they won’t care about the consequences to the industry.