Jim,
I've been following this thread for a few days now and all I can see is you getting hot
under the collar because of piracy. Honestly, I don't blame you. I hate to say it, but the
only way to keep your art from being 'pirated' is to just plain stop releasing it, and that
would upset all your fans.
Unfortunately, E.E.'Doc' Smith said it a long, long time ago: "What technology can create,
technology can duplicate." At least, something along those lines. Anything you do to
prevent piracy is only going to be seen as a challenge to 'break' it and then post the works
to thumb their noses at you. I do know of a simple method to make copying online images
more difficult and guarantee a low-res copy in most cases, but your fans aren't likely to
settle for low-res if they purchase a CD of even your oldest works.
A better choice might be to do what Nine Inch Nails and a few other modern rock groups
are doing--including shortly, reportedly, Metallica; who have been the poster boys for the
RIAA's litigation assault against downloaders. These groups are making the works
available for download with a "pay what you think it's worth" model. The interesting effect
has been that the groups have actually been making more money through this model than
they have going through the 'traditional' channels of the recording companies.
Ok, true, theirs is performance art, not graphical in the same sense as your own. But what
it proves is that people are willing to pay for the works if they really want it and the RIAA's
piracy claims are essentially so much bunk. It's not the little guy that's hurting them, just
like it's not the consumer that's pirating Microsoft's Windows. The pirates are the ones
who are out to make money off of their thefts by grabbing, copying and reselling the
works, much like that one guy now banned from fur conventions for selling pirated art on
CDs.
The point is: quit spending your money fighting the nobodies and market to your real
fans. As far as I know, your portfolios pretty much sell out every time in very short order.
You would know this better than I. However, it should show that people are willing to pay
for your works and that your true fans will do what they can to support that effort.
I haven't been able to buy all your portfolios, but I can tell you that, as far as I know,
everything I have in my hard drive either has your SkunkworksAMA banner across the
middle or is stuff you've made available through this group in one way or another. If I had
a collected works CD, I could remove that collection from my hard drive and put the disk
in the same folder currently holding my most recent purchase from you.
Received on Fri May 02 2008 - 04:33:21 CDT