Is online piracy a really serious problem? My opinion: nope.

[Prophet 451]

137. I'm with you

This is all about studio execs not making quite the mind-boggling level of profits they want to. If the artist puts up a website, I'll buy their music directly from them (and do, frequently) and be happy doing so but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay the inflated prices the studios want me to pay. I only have a few downloaded movies/tv shows. I downloaded those because I'd happily be pre-ordering them if they ever got a release in this country (England). Me downloading those shows is not costing the studio a penny when they won't release the damn thing anyway.

I'm a big comic book fan for comic books were, for years, even worse than TV for not releasing stuff. For many years, the only way to read Miracleman/Marvelman (one of the earliest works by two of the most important writers in the game, Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman) was by downloading it because no-one was sure who owned the copyright. Thankfully, that's been sorted out now but it's still the case for most comics that, while enjoyable, weren't as important. Most of the Avengers books printed in the Eighties can only be gotten by downloading. Again, love to have the trades but Marvel won't release them. Same goes for most pre-Dark Knight Batman books and don't even ask about minor characters or the quirky little oneshots that both companies used to put out. If I want to read those, I have no choice but to download them. DC and Marvel are starting to catch on. They've gone day-and-date digital (digital release on the same day as hard copy) and they're very slowly digitising making their back catalogue but indie comics, forget it. I either have to order the trade from the States if it ever got a trade release or I have to download them.

I appreciate that comic books is probably not what people think of when they say "piracy" but it's a situation where the industry's refusal to move pretty much forced us to pirate the work for years. When Marvel gets around to releasing trade paperbacks for the whole of Avengers: West Coast, I'll happily delete my downloaded copies but right now, comics are at the same level music was a few years back: Very limited and patchy digital distribution and only for the biggest names.