the wreck of the fairchild
I was going to do this anyway, so it’s no skin off my proverbial nose, but on discovering that the entirety of Moving Pictures has been scraped and offered as a torrent (no link, duh), I’ve decided that hosting the story for free no longer has any use or appeal. It’s certainly coloured our view on how to proceed with our next project. I’m sure Cory Doctorow is shaking his head somewhere.
I’ve been told by Top Shelf’s Chris Staros that the Moving Pictures TPB will be solicited in March for a May 2010 release. If you can’t get it from your LCS, you can always pre-order from Amazon.
Thanks for your support.
November 16th, 2009Topic: announce, found, knitting, media, webcomics, work, www
November 16th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
I’m really sorry to hear this happened, guys.
November 17th, 2009 at 7:27 am
Sorry to hear that moving pictures is out on the net, but that doesn’t surprise me. Anyway, I stopped reading in the middle when I realized i was going to buy the book, just one more thing, Amazon’s pre-order says the book is due to september, that’s just info lag right?
November 19th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Awful, but now unless I read the torrent I won’t know I want to buy it. There is a lot of torrent stuff out there, but people still buy the real thing.
November 20th, 2009 at 6:26 am
I would just like to ask if that is ok why it bothers you so much. Do you think it will affect sales of the TPB? Because it was previously up for free then anyone who wouldn’t buy it has just read it and surely anyone who wants to own it will want the nice bound hard cover feel. (I always buy the Invincible Ultimate collections for example).
I am not saying it is ok. Obviously it is stealing and those guys are deplorable but I would hope in this case it wouldn’t actually affect your sales? I am not trying to be an idiot just wanting to ask to understand. I thought web comics weren’t really done to make profit as they are free every week?
November 20th, 2009 at 7:16 am
Hi guys, thanks for the support and, of course it’s okay to ask. The issue here is absolutely not the impact on future sales (although, while it’s impossible to gauge this with any accuracy, I think it’s not too much of a stretch to think that on-line availability has a negative impact… and that’s my understatement quota for the day shot.) Tom Spurgeon puts the issue of decision making and distro more eloquently than we can and I encourage you to read what he has to say. But additionally, this notion that ‘free’ equals ‘mine to do whatever I want with’ is not only galling but, frankly, illegal in most contexts. And, from our perspective, is symptomatic of so much of the internet which falsely believes that merely re-hosting or linking or scraping or copying is, in and of itself, not only contributing but is a creative act.
November 20th, 2009 at 7:21 am
And Oliver, I thought you were being sarcastic but realizing that you may not be… I’m baffled. There are lots of ways for you to decide that you want to buy this or any other book or any other thing. You can look at the eight page preview on the publisher’s site. You can wait for reviews. You can have some faith in us or any other creator and make a decision based on previous work. Or, shock, you could go into a bookstore and flip through it and make your decision that way.
November 20th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Okay, I understand that torrents and the people who host those things should be shut down and it is totally wrong what they do.
But the sort of person who would want to buy this collected may have already read it on the internet or part of it and may want to own it because of its quality. In those cases the person doesn’t want it in electonic form. They don’t want some low quality version that they have to see on screen. They want a nice bound version which they can flip through at their leisure.
For instance I often buy artists sketch books even though most of those pages I have already seen on the internet. I just want to own the real version.
I guess it is the casual reader though who only read part of it or might give it a go and for them the torrent is the cheap option. Hopefully someone will shut down whoever is hosting your stuff!!!
November 20th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Ah yes, I don’t need the whole thing, just a preview. I don’t mean to come off sarcastic. I came here from a link to Colleen Doran’s site, and realised that while I was interested, there was nothing to see since you’d taken it down.
November 27th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
It’s a hard feeling to describe when you see your artwork, writing, etc, appropriated by another without so much as an email to let me know, like a nausea.
Maybe it’ll affect the sale, maybe it won’t, but what it is, in reality, regardless of the business standpoint is a violation of a person(s)
I’m sorry to hear that it happened. It’s been a great series and I can’t wait to see it on the shelves. My LCS is under specific direction to call me whenever a product by either of the Incredible Immonen Duo come in.
I hope to see the two of you find a happy solution to the issue of misuse. It’s never a good feeling to have your hard work violated.
Best,
Josh