More about e-books from Gary

[Guy Lapointe]

Hi Gary and DCML Community,

This is my first answer on this forum so I hope that I follow the right procedure!

 

Disney Productions, at least in the US, along with WMG (the Warner Entertainment Group) have been the most aggressive corporations as far as copyright enforcement goes.  Disney was the first one to sue Sony for their release of the Betamax VCR back in the seventies.  They also supported aggressively any limiting if not destroying of any devices that can copy analog/digital music or videos (Napster, DVD's, CD & DVD writers (on PC's), Video Recorders, etc...

WMG has a team that routinely scans youtube clips and goes after anyone that puts up videos of their products (and they own a lot of them since they have bought the entire Hanna-Barbera library).

 

Instead of using the web to extend their products of classic comics, cartoons, et... to a new generation of kids (and adults) that never experienced them, using this media as free publicity, they spend millions bottling up their possessions for possible future profits.

This is sadly hurting them in the long run because it:

-Prevents exposure of the younger generation to these films

-By the same token, it lowers their sales of the products (in favor of more recent productions)

-Creates an adversarial relationship with the public (think of the spectacularly insane lawsuits that the RIAA has conducted against older people, teachers, kids, etc... in the States.

-Given enough time, if the newer public is not exposed to these vintage classics, there will be a very small demand for these except for the older generations that grew up with them.

 

I fully agree with your idea though especially since there are many stories that have completely disappeared from circulation.  An "e-library" would be a wonderful way to keep like in a museum for free access for future generations to enjoy the works of Carl Barks, Don Rosa, and the other writers/artists who contributed to the history of these Disney characters.

 

Without exposure, there is much less demand for these as tastes of generations change.

 

As a baby boomer, I grew up with Disney characters and many others such as Belgique's or France's Tintin, Spirou, Journal de Mickey,...  Unfortunately, my younger children were more what is available on TV nowadays.

 

In any case, I fully support your idea - I would love to get my hands on all the work that was produced on the Disney characters.

 

By the way, the "Journal de Mickey", a large French youth-oriented weekly publication, has been in production since 1934!  They have published an unbelievable number of Disney comics stories not only from Mr. Barks and Rosa but also from also from other writers from Italy, France...  They are still publishing new stories.  It would be so good to have these available again.

 

Sincerely,

Guy "Lancelot"
 
From: bangfish at cableone.net
To: dcml at nafsk.se
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:15:38 -0700
Subject: And More About E-Books

This subject has really got my brain in a whirl, so I hope you'll all  
bear with me.
 
Disclaimer: I'm no lawyer, not in any way, shape or form. Disclosure:  
My sister is running for the Missouri state legislature. Never saw  
that coming.
 
But to proceed…
 
Scenario 1: I take my printed collection of Uncle Scrooge comics to a  
used book seller and the used book seller buys the comics from me and  
then puts them out in the store for sale (or, these days, offers it on  
the store web site) and eventually (fingers crossed) sells them. A  
very ordinary chain of events, and one we're all familiar with and  
have probably participated in at some point.
 
Scenario 2: I take my collection of Uncle Scrooge e-comics to a used e- 
book seller.
 
The reason Scenario 2 is so brief is because, to the best of my  
knowledge, there is no such thing as a used e-book seller. An e-book  
can be considered used in the sense of having been owned by a previous  
purchaser, but there's one very big problem with that: unlike with my  
printed collection of Uncle Scrooges, I'm quite able to retain  
possession of my "original" e-copies while selling e-copies--exact  
duplicates of my "originals"--to the supposed used e-book seller.
 
We can talk about owning the bits and bytes of a digital file, and  
there are very legitimate points to be made about that (I'm for the  
idea myself, believe me), but let's face it: a printed book is paper,  
ink, binding, covers, dimensions, weight, mass and content, while a  
digital file is nothing but content. (A layman will certainly never  
perceive it as anything else.) In such terms it seems to me that a  
very legitimate case can be made that a digital file is a violation of  
copyright by simply existing, at least as anything other than the  
creator's original file (and I'm not so sure that wouldn't at least  
technically violate copyright in some way). As the ownership and  
protection of copyright is what's causing all the fur to fly among all  
the dogs in the current cat fight over the commercial exploitation of  
the e-book, these things do concern me quite a bit.
 
To run on a bit further…one can take a printed book and photocopy it,  
sure, but it's a relatively cumbersome process which offers the  
copyright owner a certain degree of inherent protection because of  
that very cumbersomeness. Much the same can be said for OCR scanning,  
but the end result is…a digital file, substantively no different from  
any other digital file and therefore solving none of the issues of  
digital files.
 
A final thought, i.e. a slight digression…I've gotten quite used to  
reading daily comic strips online. One of the almost miraculous things  
about the strips is that they are very nice, clean and legible on my  
screen at a file resolution that's far too low for adequate print  
reproduction. That's substantial copyright protection right there, at  
least when it comes to preventing online graphic materials from being  
pirated in print.
 
Okay, brain less whirly now. Thank you for your patience and attention.
 
Gary
 

 		 	   		  
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