Piracy has long been an issue in almost every segment of the creative media production industry from film to music to comics. Of course, in the twentieth century this really only extended to as many physical copies as one person could make and sell to people they knew. Since the dawn of the internet, however, reproduction and distribution of all kinds of media has become incredibly simple and certain websites have vast reaches. Of course, as a college student reluctant to pay for produce, I fault no one for trying to get something for free. The difference between comics and other art is that comics are often available for free in the first place, and artists .
As early as 2015 Hervé St-Louis was writing about the difficulties comic book artists had filing DMCA reports against illegal distributers, specifically Mangaforadult.com. The often young, independent artists publishing their work on legitamate websites became responsible for taking down the distribution site, only for it to reappear weeks later under a slightly different IP address. More recently, in 2022 Kim Morrissey wrote about the impact piracy has had on the authors of several BL webcomics. One writer, YD, publishes 25 comics on the Lehzin official site, but only one is not regularly pirated. That one work makes them 20 times more income than any of their work, and is the only reason they can continue to work as a comic story writer. Another creator, Haesin, claims they lose up to 70% of their potential income to piracy, as on just one pirate website their comic had ten times the views as the official version. And these BL artists aren’t the only ones being affected. A 2019 BBC article highlights a tweet from Avengers and Wayward writer Jim Zub about the sheer scale of comic piracy, and a reply from Live with Yourself! artist Andy Kluthe about how piracy contributed to the end of a comic he used to publish and make available for free.
If these creators are making their work available for free, how does piracy affect their bottom line? How are they making any money in the first place? Websites like WebToon and Lehzin sell advertisement space, usually at the bottom of or beside a comic, and a portion of that profit gets passed on to the artists. The illegal distribution sites do the same thing, often adding pop-up ads and redirects, but none of the profit goes back to the people who originally produced the content. By making the content available with no daily limits or other restrictions, these websites pull eyes away from the original content hosts.
As early as 2015 Hervé St-Louis was writing about the difficulties comic book artists had filing DMCA reports against illegal distributors, specifically Mangaforadult.com. The often young, independent artists publishing their work on legitimate websites became responsible for taking down the distribution site, only for it to reappear weeks later under a slightly different IP address. More recently, in 2022 Kim Morrissey wrote about the impact piracy has had on the authors of several BL webcomics. One writer, YD, publishes 25 comics on the Lezhin official site, but only one is not regularly pirated. That one work makes them 20 times more income than any of their work and is the only reason they can continue to work as a comic story writer. Another creator, Haesin, claims they lose up to 70% of their potential income to piracy, as on just one pirate website their comic had ten times the views as the official version. And these BL artists aren’t the only ones being affected. A 2019 BBC article highlights a tweet from Avengers and Wayward writer Jim Zub about the sheer scale of comic piracy, and a reply from Live with Yourself! artist Andy Kluthe about how piracy contributed to the end of a comic he used to publish and make available for free.
If these creators are making their work available for free, how does piracy affect their bottom line? How are they making any money in the first place? Websites like WebToon and Lezhin sell advertisement space, usually at the bottom of or beside a comic, and a portion of that profit gets passed on to the artists. The illegal distribution sites do the same thing, often adding pop-up ads and redirects, but none of the profit goes back to the people who originally produced the content. By making the content available with no daily limits or other restrictions, these websites pull eyes away from the original content hosts.
Like I said before, I understand the urge to always want the free version of a product. It can feel good to “cheat the system,” and the wide availability of pirated comics can make it feel like no one is being harmed, or that you aren’t really adding to the problem. But in this case the original owners aren’t the system, the pirates are. “Comic Artist” is not a glamourous job, it usually doesn’t come with the same fame and power as “Rock Star” or “Film Director”. Many of these artists are young people struggling to make a living doing what they love and sharing their passion with the world as freely as they can. It’s our job as readers and enjoyers of comics to support the people whose hard work brings richness to our lives, not the secretive shadows behind websites that snatch up their work as quickly as they release it.
One of the most difficult things about publishing any type of art (including comics) is that once it is on the internet, it’s pretty much up for grabs. I’ve seen instances where people’s work has been stolen and monetized without the creator’s consent. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any fix to this, and piracy is definitely something that needs to be addressed in the future.