Prepare To Be Adapted: Pirates Of The Web

The topic this time is pirating. Arrrrgh! OK, not exactly that kind of pirating. I’m talking about online piracy.

Online piracy has run rampant throughout the Web for years. Downloading and sharing music, movies, television shows, books, and comic books has continued despite the efforts by the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America. This fall, there were a large number of leaked pilots on the Web. "Bionic Woman," "Pushing Daisies," "Reaper," "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," "Chuck," "Cavemen" and more are all pilots that were leaked this fall before airing on television. Heck, just recently there were leaked copies of "Battlestar Galactica’s" "Razor" and "Stargate SG-1’s" "Ark of Truth" weeks or months before their planned release.

The last on that list of pirated media is comic books. Few really think about comic book pirating, the press is always talking about movies and music. But yes, illegal comic book downloads have been going on for years, mostly unchallenged by publishers. But recently, things have changed.

The comic book torrent tracking site Z-CultFM has been one of the most popular, claimed by some to have a 70,000 plus viewership, and has recently become a target of Marvel, DC, and Top Cow comic book publishers. After Z-CultFM received legal papers, they made some posturing, but later caved in and are now removing all torrents from these three publishers. Needless to say, without the Big Two books, Z-CultFM has lost a gigantic list of titles. They almost decided to close the site, but have chosen to stick around for a while.

What prompted these publishers to take legal action now? Well, Marvel Comics recently launched its new Digital Comics Unlimited Web site. The site offers more than 2,500 items, with more to come, using a monthly and yearly subscription service. DC isn’t currently offering a similar program, they just decided to join in.

I haven’t heard of any other sites being targeted, well, except for the lesser known UK torrent tracker site ComicSearch. They tried posting an open letter to Marvel Comics about their legal action against Z-CultFM. All it really did was get them on Marvel’s radar and now they are removing Marvel torrents from their site, too.

There have been rumors of the Big Two keeping their eyes on other torrent trackers, but so far there hasn’t been any other major legal action. Or at least, none that I’ve heard of.

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