Graphic novel piracy on 4chan leads to massive spike in sales

Re:Graphic novel piracy on 4chan leads to massive spike in s... by noonespecial on Thursday October 21, 2010 @09:44PM (#1818259)

I know this is supposed to seem like a huge outlier and ridiculously far-fetched, but historically, its just not.

Its called:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage

Yep. People give money to artists because they like what they're doing and they have a relationship with the artist. Not because some middle-man arbitrates the price of the art of some unreachable "star" or because some lawyer mugged them with paper weapons.

Edit: I know that this probably won't work at "Madonna" scale. The artist can't possibly make a meaningful connection with a fanbase that large. That might be the point.

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Re:Graphic novel piracy on 4chan leads to massive spike in s... by mattmanser on Friday October 22, 2010 @06:32AM (#1819169)

In the internet world this relies on every artist being an extrovert and a marketing expert as well as an artist.

Also, we don't live in a feudal system or aristocracy where a significant proportion of the wealth is controlled by a small elite who have little more to do than live idly.

So the conditions are different, an artist has to gain a lot more followers than in previous times through a method which is actually pretty specialised and tough.

But if you're that passionate about your art, maybe you're just going to have to learn how to gain a base of fans willing to patronise you.

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Re:Graphic novel piracy on 4chan leads to massive spike in s... by wazoox on Friday October 22, 2010 @07:06AM (#1819227)

> Also, we don't live in a feudal system or aristocracy where a significant proportion of the wealth is controlled by a small elite who have little more to do than live idly.

This is definitely wrong. Most of the wealth is actually controlled by a small elite, as a matter of fact.

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Re:Graphic novel piracy on 4chan leads to massive spike in s... by dLuna on Friday October 22, 2010 @06:44AM (#1819185)

We actually do live in a society where the super rich have nothing to do that live idly. Earth has never had as few people controlling as much money/power as we have at the moment.

(On the other hand, the poor are a lot "richer" nowadays as well)

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