Creative people, beware! What is worse, having your worked ripped off by pirates or being forced to channel your creative efforts through a labyrinth of laws and high tech security defenses that are supposedly intended to protect you and your creations but in reality herd you to a desolate pasture guarded by dogs whose only interest is to control and profit from your work?
Copyrights, trademarks, and patents are all jokes. They only protect those that can afford to enforce them.
“Hi! I’m a comic artist. I created a work and I have a copyright and a trademark on it but now it is viral on the web in torrent sites and a big company is publishing a comic just like it. They have plans to make a film. I can’t afford to go after all or any of the pirates so my trademark is naked leaving me unprotected. I’d love to go after the big company but I can’t afford representation. Any lawyer who will take my case will bleed me after settlement if I win.”
Sound familiar? It’s tough being a starving artist.
Oppose DRM-Click here and visit Defective By Design
Now there is DRM. Digital Rights Management programs are intended to protect creative works from being copied in this digital age. Sounds good but for creative folks that consider themselves “the little guy” DRM becomes another hurdle that ends up costing money. You self-publish a comic and make an e-book out of it but now need to buy a different ISBN for every platform that it is on or become locked into a platform because of exclusivity contracts. Pick the wrong platform and your project is dead in the water.
We all got an eye-full when Marvel crashed Comixology. Headlines should have read, “Industry Giant Floods Market. Blacks Out All Competition.” What does the crash have to do with DRM? Apps like Comixology are intended to facilitate monetization of digital comics that formerly relied on the internet for “distribution” They are also intended to deter piracy by making legally paid-for, digital content easily accessible the way iTunes did for music in the hope that inherently honest people would avoid torrent sites.
But DRM prevents you from owning what you have bought. It is more like a library card that lets you borrow a comic to view whenever you want to with certain limitations. Whatever you do don’t share it!
Marvel’s blackout of Comixology was more than a big reminder that we don’t really own what we plunk our cash down for. It also showed that Marvel had the power to prevent accessibility to smaller works just like they do when they flood the Direct Market with a million popular titles.
According to a recent article HTML5′s overseer says DRM’s true purpose is to prevent legal forms of innovation.
Seriously?
We really are being herded.
Controversy over creative ownership and sharing has to be as old as the earliest cave drawings. Imagine them arguing over copying each other’s stick figure, animal drawings. But those drawings preserved stories that needed to be shared. Their value became measured by a culture that grew from their sharing. We are their ultimate beneficiaries. Copying was not stealing. it was sharing.
Before records, cassette tapes and mp3 players music was copied and shared by anyone with an instrument or a singing voice. Somebody whistling a tune they just heard could be considered a pirate in the strictest terms today. The person who wrote the tune could feel jeopardized that the whistler is entertaining others with the tune while returning no royalty. The whistler in reality is free advertisement for the song writer and the professional that originally performed the song.
There is value in sharing and a fine line to ownership when it comes to culture. We all want to be recognized and rewarded for our creations but do we have to protect them so dearly that only those that can afford to can have access to them. This stinginess ultimately hurts everyone including the artist.
Imagine where South Korean musician PSY would be today if his K-Pop single, Gangnam Style didn’t make him a world sensation by going viral on the internet. All that shared free publicity resulted in over $8 million in revenue from paid iTunes downloads and commercials.
People may settle for a copy if they have to but they will always value ownership of the original. As much as we hate the idea of knock-offs, the truth is they drive up the value of the original by increasing demand and simulating popularity.
Artists, don’t be manipulated by fear! Big companies and content providers will be the first cry foul and instigate unfettered fear among artists to justify radical defensive measures regarding laws and security plans like DRM. Behind the frenzy is a calculated plot to control the artists whose free thinking poses the greatest threat of all to the big wigs at the top.
The internet has provided us with the greatest, most fertile environment for creativity ever. The digital age has given power to the artist. Do not be fooled to hand over the keys to big business and their strangling tactics. Do not be manipulated.
Making Comics Because We Want to,
Gerry Giovinco
