COMMONALITY OF PURPOSE

I read Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctrow last week. Because I am a shameless tech fetishist, I downloaded it onto my Visor to read on the bus. I enjoyed it immensely. But as good as the book is, it's the license and distribution by which I read it that I want to talk bout.

The book is published by Tor books, and Amazon were selling it for about 15 quid a throw in hardcover, when they had it in stock, but my downloaded copy didn't cost me a cent, and I have it with the author's blessing under a digital Creative Commons license. I'm allowed to read it, and distribute it however I please, provided I maintain Mr Doctrow's authorial credit and licensing terms, don't make any money off it, and don't create any derivative works.

Now, this license only works with any certainty under US law, although they're working on versions for other jurisdictions. Still, this represents an interesting step toward a more modern working of copyright laws. While you may not agree with the actions of music pirates, or software pirates, or the people who put whole scanned comics on-line, the fact remains that technology has advanced to the point that it's easy for them to do so and share the results with the world, and there is no efficient means of putting that particular genie back in the bottle.

Music pirates have made a pretty compelling argument that services like Napster and it's successors have, rather than harming record sales, actually boosted them, as it's only a very small minority of people who download tracks and don't then make purchases based on the downloads. Hell, I have a friend whose business plan includes digitally distributing his work over networks like Kazaa in order to generate word-of-mouth for the paid for product ? he's sufficiently confident that people will want a permanent copy of the work that they'll buy it, even after downloading it for free.

Print publishers like Tor have an even more compelling case. Sure, I've just read the complete novel, but it's not sitting on my bookshelf for me to grab and flip through whenever I want. I like to re-read, after all. Tor even put out a press release to the effect that their experiments in this direction have boosted sales to a nearly unprecedented degree.

Comics publishers have been slowly taking steps toward this sort of thing. Oni Press, for instance, routinely trailers upcoming works on its website ahead of print publication, and then includes that free material in a trade, and has also made whole issues available for free download from time to time ? first issues and jumping-on points. CrossGen has its comics-on-the-web scheme, although that's a subscription service. Marvel makes some 12-page previews available in advance, and puts selected titles up on-line each month after publication. AIT/Planetlar has also made previews of selected works available in advance on-line.

No-one has quite yet gone as far as Tor has, and made a complete comic available for free on-line at the same time as the paid for version is released, and more than that, positively encouraged people to distribute it as they saw fit. It's the logical next step, though, and in some ways, comics have it even easier. Even more so than with a book, the print version is going to offer a superior, more comfortable experience, so there's even more incentive to buy.

But here's the other interesting thought that occurs, based on a version of the license: you could make fan-fic legal without hurting your ownership of the properties.

'Copyright protection is going to have to evolve'Comics have long been afflicted/blessed (choose your own option, because I'm neutral on the matter) with a sizeable fan-fic community. They've tended to be kept in the basement like some sort of scary inbred cousin, because, let's be fair, most of it is shit. But that doesn't discount the possibility that some of them have genuine talent. License the work under creative commons, and suddenly companies become able to admit to looking at it, and look Ma, that talent pool just grew!

Of course, that may be a questionable bonus, but still, it's a gesture that wouldn't cost a company a penny, and would make a section of the fanbase very happy, and probably (even more) absurdly loyal. Find me a marketing person who thinks that that would be a bad thing.

Of course this is all just my ramblings, but the fact remains - as it becomes easier to pirate/distribute works in an increasingly connected world, copyright protection is going to have to evolve, and that's going to have to involve comics. So we might as well start thinking about it.

EPIC DELUSIONS

This week's big news is that Marvel is relaunching its old Epic imprint. Leaving aside the morass of rumours, confusion and speculation about the imprint, and its seeming lack of focus, Marvel has been touting the fact that contributors to many comics websites have been approached to pitch ? hell, I've seen the work of some of the people who have been recommended to pitch available on line, and frankly, I don't think they could be trusted to write a coherent description of a ping-pong ball, much less a comic. But still, Marvel is on a talent hunt, and more power to them.

'This looks like artificial controversy to me'But a thought: instead of commissioning complete mini-series, or ongoing works, why not get these fledgling teams to each create a single issue that will be made available on line for free, and then get the public to vote, and pick up the top two or three to go to print? Webisode houses were trying this sort of thing with a fair amount of success just before the internet bubble burst. Oh, and if you're going to get the public to vote, you'll need to offer them an incentive ? each time you vote for a comics, you get a chance to win a year's subscription to the comic of your choice, for example. It doesn't need to be anything costly ? just a token incentive will work.

There's no need to make the results known, of course. The public are notoriously stupid, and may vote for something that it would be just plain embarrassing to publish. But y'know, it'd be good for the hype. And it would allow the publisher to gauge response without taking a big financial risk ? you pay the creators a reasonable page rate, but you don't need to pay the printing costs on all those first issues. This would work for any interested publisher, not just Marvel.

Now, I'm not saying I'd be in favour of this becoming standard industry practice ? it's got too many huge flaws in it, and would, if anything, make breaking in even harder. But publicising the fact that you're going trawling for talent in the fan community (not waiting for the fans to pitch to you, but actively soliciting pitches from members of the fan community) and especially among "press" websites, well, that has the stink of "PR stunt" about it, and if you're going for PR stunt, then it's been proven time and time again that this sort of thing works, at least with the on-line audience.

But this looks like artificial controversy to me, especially when there's no guarantee that any of these people will get published by Marvel in the end. It's not like you find Marvel shouting about how they've just asked Grant Morrison to pitch for ULTIMATE BARBIE, or something. Why shout about this?

Sure, you could argue that this is a way to send a clear signal that Marvel is open to submissions from fans again ? all sorts of submissions, at that. But somehow, I don't think Marvel is hurting for submissions. No, this has the smell of a stunt to boost sales on books by new, untested writers.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing ? I think it's very necessary, commercially and creatively. If you can't shift books by new writers, then there's no point making them, and if you can't get new writers in, then the industry is doomed. But at the same time, I think it's important to know it for what it is. Otherwise the fan-fic community is going to get its hopes up, and I'd hate to see anyone's feelings hurt...

Alasdair Watson is the author of the Eagle Award-nominated RUST.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.