Lauren Orsini of Forbes claims that ease of distribution for digital comics will "stifle comic book piracy," relating a touching story of her own dabbling in illegal downloads. She points to her own experience as a fan of a not entirely unrelated medium:
As a fan of Japanese animation, Ive seen the near-elimination of anime piracy in my lifetime. About a decade ago, fans had two choices: to wait months and months for prohibitively expensive DVDs, or to illegally pirate shows right now. Everything changed when anime producers began selling subscriptions so people could watch shows online.
She is probably correct in this, but what's hard to measure is how easy digital comics have to be to buy before piracy becomes no longer worth it.
T Campbell has written quite a few online comics series and selected work for Marvel, Archie and Tokyopop. His longest-running works are Fans, Penny and Aggie-- and his current project with co-writer Phil Kahn, Guilded Age.
