Attendee 4: Do you ever see the possibility of a site like Hulu for comics, the kind of site that would offer the content for free, but just have ads supporting it?
Douglas Wolk: It's very hard to imagine that, just because television is something where the time it takes to consume it is decided for you ahead of time. Comics don't really work like that.
Another way of thinking about it is along the lines of the proposed Canadian model for content, where it's a content free-for-all, where broadband service includes a little charge that goes to media providers and someone figures on how this money gets divided among all the copyright holders. That's also a logistical nightmare.
David Steinberger: Yeah, well in Hulu, you know, that experiment hasn't proven out yet.
Jake Forbes: I was going to try to mention this earlier, but I think that there is a lot to learn from free-to-play games. The game market has found ways to put the content up there and it's not necessarily ad-supported, but there are other ways to monetize -
Deb Aoki: Like Farmville?
Jake Forbes:: Yeah, like Farmville. So things like micro transactions and other ways that would allow rights holders to put up content for free and still get paid, besides being just ad-supported.
Attendee 5: I think the comiXology product is fantastic. I know there are licensing issues, that publishers still want us to truck down to the comics shop to buy comics, but that said, when do you think the market system is going to force their hand?
For example, I'm a big Dungeons and Dragons player. I have all the printouts, all the books in PDF format. I can't buy them in PDF format from Wizards of the Coast anymore because they were being pirated.
Or another example: I watch BBC shows, and because of licensing issues, I have to download Doctor Who in order to watch it. I still buy it and pay for it when the DVDs come out, because I want to support this, but when are companies going to realize that they should just put things out the day they are released, because that's what's already happening -- it is already available on the day of release, but it's not from them.
David Steinberger: I think these companies already realize that their hand is being forced, but you're also mentioning things that have been out there in different markets for years and you're still seeing some resistance from the publishers. So even if you buy an MP3 from iTunes, give it out to your friends, you should know that your name is on it. Your name is on it.
Douglas Wolk: On the other hand, when you buy an MP3 from eMusic, it's effectively on the honor system.
David Steinberger: Right, but eMusic doesn't have the same kind of selection, right? Close, it's close. It's going to happen eventually - I think it's going to take maybe four, five years.
Maybe we could find some way to do open Guided View translations and let some fans do it for us… actually that's a pretty good idea! (laughs)
But just because I can and just because it's available doesn't mean that publishers see it as them needing to facilitate the sharing of these things willy-nilly by handing over a non-DRM copy. I think you'll see more comics coming with coupons to redeem at comiXology. So you'll have digital copy and you can put the other one on your computer and just like the DVD's with Warner Bros, where they provide a digital copy.
Douglas Wolk: I think, once again, this is a market that will be determined on its own terms. It's the market that makes it very clear what works. We have time for one more quick and awesome question.
Attendee 6: I remember 10 years ago, if I liked two songs on an album, I had to pay $18 to buy the album. Now iTunes has set the price such that I can just buy those two songs and pay $2.00. What do you think is a reasonable price for online comics?
David Steinberger: There's a reasonable price for an online comic, and it's what the most people will pay for it, right? It's about convenience, it's about having it stream over 3G, but is that worth anything to you?
22 pages on our app are $1.99 from Marvel and DC, and a lot are available for 99 cents for an issue. About 180 of our titles are available for free, so you can get a taste or two, for instance. In some cases, issue number one is free on the app and you can buy the rest if you like it.
The price is going to be determined by the market. 99 cents doesn't help anybody, so I'm kind of glad that Marvel legitimized the $1.99 price for this, because as I said, this stuff has value. It takes work to create and it's worth some money. Whether or not it's going to stay $1.99, I don't know. If there's a big enough audience for comics at 99 cents each, then that's where it's going to go.
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Also related: author, blogger and librarian Robin Brenner explains 4 reasons why reading manga at the library isn't the same as scanlations.
