[Groop] Groo... What pirates? (File Sharing)

[Larry Steller]

Many good points brought up on both sides of the
issue.

My two cents?

First of all, making PDF copies and making them
available for download is PUBLISHING a Groo comic
book, something that cannot be done without paying
Royalties, case closed. There is no grey area here, it
is stealing, and it is illegal. 

If someone wants to post a sample of a single page to
help promote Groo, well, they STILL need Sergio's
permission. If I remember correctly, Sergio HATES the
idea of his artwork being available on the internet,
because his hard work is then made given eway for free
without his permission.

It is likely not worth the lawyer fees for Sergio to
track these folks down, unfortunately. If you care for
Sergio and respect his hard work and talent, you will
not support trafficking in Pirated Comics, whether
photocopied or scanned. 

I also suggest that anyone in the Groop who does such
a thing should most certainly NEVER attend the San
Diego Comic Con, because I will NOT be, ummm, NICE! 

As far as music downloads goes, well, yeah, some
people DO buy music after they download, but the vast,
vast majority of folks are quite simply stealing
music. 

A few songs here or there? Big deal. 

But many individuals who download are copying
thousands of music files! This is no exaggeration,
people are filling up their hard dries with music
libraries!

I have two friends who told me they'll never buy a CD
again, since they can just get whatever they want for
free anytime they want!

These people think that stealing from a
multimillionaire recording artist is fine, they have
enough money right? Robin Hood and all that. But they
forget about all of the other folks who are not
earning money because music was stolen instead of
sold. Retailers, distributors, college kids trying to
work their way through college with a part time job...

I now work in a record store as an assistant manager,
and sales are so bad we can barely afford to keep a
skeleton crew on staff. We need more people but don't
have the sales to support an adequate staff, so there
are folks out there without a job because we didn't
hire them!

Last Thursday myself and 2 other employees were
working in our very large store, but we really needed
4 or 5 people but, as I said, sales don't support that
kind of staff any more. Anyway, 4 hoods came into the
store, one asked me for help with something in the far
corner of the store, another distracted the other
employee, the third engaged the associate at the
register while the fourth filled up a huge bag with
DVD's and ran out of the store! 

He made off with $2100.00 worth of DVD's, and this is
the third time that this has happened in 4 months,
We've prevented such bulk thefts even more times, not
to mention the daily shoplifting that we can't
possibly prevent because we can't watch everybody and
still help customers. 

My point is NOT to blame this on file-sharing, but if
sales were better and we had an adequate staff, we'd
prevent this sort of thing much more often.

WHOA Larry, step OFF the soap box, hee hee. Sorry to
come on so strong, but this has hit a nerve. Nothing
personal, I respect the opposing views about sharing
as advertising to generate sales, I just believe it's
more the exception than the rule.

=====
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-Larry "Mr. Grooism" Steller, Mendicant Second Class

"There I was one night, just a normal guy; and then there I was the next night... goddamn I was still just a normal guy!" -Bruce Springsteen

Mr. Grooism's Blog: http://mrgrooism.diaryland.com 

NEWS FROM ME: http://www.newsfromme.com/ 
POVONLINE: http://www.povonline.com/ ; 
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ODDBALL COMICS: http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/oddball/

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