My two cents on Scans_Daily

It's safe to say that virtually no one reading this will think that existing IP laws are a perfect fit for the Internet, the only real disagreement is over how badly they work. But even as a casual and occasional viewer of scans_daily I could see that there were posts going well beyond even a liberal reading of "fair use". Maybe they were a minority of posts, and against the spirit of the group, but that doesn't matter.

scans_daily was in violation of existing law. Period. Full stop. I don't think it could be successfully argued they weren't, not in a reality-based reality. Whether the law should have been against it is irrelevant. Whether the group did more good than harm gained companies more sales than it lost them, also irrelevant. Not every company is going to be Baen, and if they want to cling to old models, it's their right.

I find it awfully hard to believe that the recent Photobucket issue was the first time a copyright holder complained about scans_daily, but it was probably the proverbial last straw. LiveJournal management can only look the other way for so long before they become legally liable for what's happening. They decided they'd lost plausible deniability, and yanked the community. Don't be pissed that they killed the group, be glad they let it live for so long.

Nod-and-wink lawbreaking can only keep going as long as everyone plays it cool and doesn't get too blatant about things. All it takes is one user posting half an issue to make things impossible to ignore from a legal liability standpoint. And as much as people would like to scapegoat Peter David or Photobucket or whoever else gets dragged out for pillorying, it's the users' own hubris that brought things down.

Kitbash: K-girl Sue Groth (Cthugrosh)

( Cute Cthulhu-girl behind cut )