Most of my comics reading is done at Comixology. It works well enough, but I don’t actually own the comics I purchase on Comixology. Instead, I’m paying for a license to read specific comics files stored on Comixology’s servers. If I lost Internet access or if Comixology goes out of business, I lose access to my collection. It’s another example of digital rights management (DRM) that inconveniences paying customers like me while doing nothing to discourage piracy. But unless I want to pirate (which I don’t), it’s the only way to get the digital comics I want.<\/p>\n
That is, until Image Comics<\/a>, publisher of notable titles like The Walking Dead<\/em> and the excellent Saga<\/em>, began selling DRM-free comics on its own site<\/a>. I tried out the store last night and, while the layout needs some improvement, it delivers as promised. I can download my comics in a number of formats and read them on my PC or iPad. And I own the actual digital file. The selection at the store is still paltry, but Image is promising to add more current and back issues.<\/p>\n I’m hoping that Marvel and DC will eventually follow suit and offer DRM-free comics. Digital music went through a similar evolution when the industry realized that customers will gladly pay for content that doesn’t come with burdensome restrictions. Hopefully, the comics industry is coming to the same realization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most of my comics reading is done at Comixology. It works well enough, but I don’t actually own the comics I purchase on Comixology. Instead, I’m paying for a license to read specific comics files stored on Comixology’s servers. If I lost Internet access or if Comixology goes out of business, I lose access to […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geeking-out","category-17-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Iwau-12Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4030,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4029\/revisions\/4030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}