Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Legally?
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Of course not but Marvel doesn't have to compete with other legal digital comic sellers. For one, it's main competition, DC, is almost nonexistent in the legal digital marketplace, so far as I can tell. Two, Marvel obviously has a monopoly over its own content (i.e. copyright) so people who want a digital Spider-Man comic have one legal digital option. Sadly, it is a very poor experience compared to the illegal alternative. Comic scanners do an amazing job converting paper comics to a digital platform and it's so sad that Marvel has failed to realize the appeal of pirated comics' simplicity or flat out ignored it in favor of its web-based platform because it's the only DRM scheme it could come up with. For better or worse (I would argue "for better," although it's a moot point here), people who deal in copyrighted content need to compete with digital pirates because as of right now it is the pirates who offer that same content in better quality through a more convenient distribution model. Copyright is all about centralized control so it's difficult for these companies to compete when they're not willing to give up some of that control in order to allow for a better consumer experience. Hulu does a great job of offering a centralized hub for free television programming but many television networks have chosen to forgo that site and offer their content solely on their individual networks' sites, often times with different kinds of players and you can't use any of these web-based players on tablets like the iPad that don't have flash. This is an example of a system doomed to fail.