The Vanishing

The Vanishing readers write:

So you want to retain copyright for your own "work" but you're happy to steal from artists such as myself, Sean Phillips, Jim Baikie and John Smith? Fair enough if you purchased the comic in the past, but it looks like you're not averse to pirating recent and readily available work, either. If you want the artists you like to continue working, then don't undermine them.

-Duncan Fegredo

[Are you] planning on paying me for stealing my work? BTW, nice bit of irony having your column copyrighted, very funny.

-Sean Phillips

I don't believe file sharing is theft or piracy. I believe it is the natural outgrowth of a social/cultural process that has been going on for decades. People have been sharing media for a long time, from making open-reel recordings of records to copying VHS tapes. No one really blinks an eye when someone tapes a CD or records a tv program for themselves or a friend. Why is using a scanner and CD burner any different?

The "norming"-the establishing of ethical boundaries-of using the internet or p2p networks to share files may still evolving, but it's here to stay. Hell, the internet was designed for sharing files; it's impossible to stop people from using it that way. Trading over the internet is just the latest version of swapping cassette tapes. I don't advocate profiteering or the mass distribution of copyrighted material.

The MPAA recently joined the music industry in suing file sharers. No surprise there, as movies are now available as soon as they are in the theaters. The lawsuits are meant to protect their profits and their turf. The initial response from the big trading sites-Suprnova, Torrentbits, Demonoid-was to shut down. Torrentbits supposedly got a letter from the FBI; Demonoid got an MPAA letter that allegedly said that, while they didn't know who or where they were, their IP address had been grabbed and they should not delete any copyrighted material from their servers. In response, the people behind Demonoid pulled a Keyser Soze.

Many of the Torrent sites are on foreign servers and have multiple windows, or claim to only have .torrents files and no protected material. I doubt this or any other "ploy" will make much difference; the lawsuits will continue. What the music and film industries don't seem to understand is that today's p2p traders are of the same breed as yesterday's tape traders, phone phreakers and program crackers. They can try to shut p2p down, but there's always a workaround.

As for my own work, Mr. Phillips, I really don't care if people repost it or put it up on their websites, as long as they don't claim my words as their own or change them. Give me credit for my writing and you can take it.