haha, lol… whatever JACKASS fabricated this clearly made-up “response” obviously doesn’t realize that no company as large as marvel or dc would ever make an official response containing a threat like this, because they tend to hire pr reps who are smart enough NOT to include vague statements which could be easily and CONVENIENTLY misconstrued as whatever type of threat the receiving party feels would be beneficial. nice pathetic try, however smart people aren’t so easily swayed by horseshit propaganda like this. seriously, fucking jackasses.

Now, I do think the downloaders tend to fit into one of two categories: the first, those who would never pay a cent for a comic book, and the second, those who download in addition to buying print comics, whether for crossovers or to prevent damage to the physical medium. Neither group really leads to lost revenue, but one group creates potential revenue.

Comic companies don’t care about the first group, and they figure that the second will pay a low subscription price for the same service, thus gaining revenue where there was none. Further, they think that they will work out quality issues in the long run. So now they go after the pirates.

The corporate mindset will never care about pirates’ rights. Drawing attention to yourself if you’re not willing to pay fight and possibly lose in court is idiotic.

2 – When Radiohead ‘released’ “In Rainbows” it was _still_ using the ‘pay-what-you-want’ model. I have no doubt whatsoever that they’ve made more from it than they would have by using the antiquated method that pays the record company the _vast_ majority of the profits…

3 – You’re normally quite lucid. do NOT drink the bongwater! :P

Exactly what they need to hear, very maturely and correctly stated.

It might not be too late yet.[/quote]

Hear bloody hear!

You don’t ‘hate to be picky’ – you’re a pedantic prick who gets wood posting typing lames. Your response is no more constructive than the twat who replied thus: “What a fucking idiot, what does he expect?”

The content is excellent & I have no doubt whatsoever that the recipient of the emails knew _exactly_ what was being said…

I see your point about the In Rainbows CD. I know that half the people paid nothing, but that is the whole point I’m making, you can give things away for free and still make money.

I can see though the view that even though Radiohead made more money, less was spent overall. But if Marvel started distributing online, they would cut out their production, distribution and advertising costs.

Furthermore, yes, half the people choose to pay nothing, but three times as many of this CD ’sold’ than their last CD, meaning -more- people paid than for “In Rainbows” than their last CD.

And finally, yes, people did download it ‘illegally’. But now, Radiohead doesn’t have to care (the whole point), because it doesn’t matter. In fact, downloading them from torrent files saved Radiohead on bandwidth costs, so if you were going to pay nothing anyway, you are helping the band by getting it elsewhere.

People keep spouting gibberish to prove that Radiohead’s attempt was a flop, like the fact that half the people paid nothing. That is completely misleading because, yes, half of the 1.2 million (first week) sales were for $0, which mean .6 million people paid. “Hail to the Thief” sold only .3 million first week. SO TWICE AS MANY PEOPLE PAID. Quit pretending like the people who paid nothing are hurting them. Now they get twice as much exposure and their next CD will do better.

Perfect example of how the system can work. Now Radiohead doesn’t have to sue downloaders, because they aren’t hurting anything and they get even -more- money than they used to.

Wise-up all you other companies and figure out how to follow suit before your artist’s figure it out for themselves and leave.

What countries are invulnerable, have unclear copyright laws, or have laws that in general, are likely to prohibit or inhibit takedown of trackers by the ‘Man’ aka, Anti-Piracy orginizations.?

Would the middle east be a viable solution? Say if you hosted in Iran or Saudi Arabia, Both of which have very good internet infrastructures (Censorship laws in the aft mentioned countries aside), Would A-P2P come after you or your tracker?

Swedish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden

“h33t.com where filesharing is an education”

As you describe it, that law still does not make it illegal to link to, or store hashes of, copyrighted material, which is all that torrent sites are doing.

Furthermore, a large proportion of Sweden’s public consists of educated, voting filesharers, and even if they are not exactly calling the shots, they hold substantial political power. (Check out the talks by the Pirate Party leader, Rick Falkvinge: http://questioncopyright.org/rick_falkvinge_visit_2007) This makes the outlook a lot better than many other countries. For example, in the United States, not only do we have somewhat draconian laws, but a lot of the filesharing public seems to feel ashamed or dirty about it. Not so in Sweden.

That said, The Pirate Bay WAS raided, and the guys do say in interviews that they have backup servers in four countries. They don’t consider Sweden a magic bullet and neither should we, but it is still one of the more hospitable places for torrents at the current time.

Anyway, back on topic.

dblack, excellent letter. I’m hoping Marvel listen, for their sake as well as the filesharers’.