You can get bootleg scans of pretty much any comic by the afternoon of their relase, but nobody is sure where they come from. David Brothers and David Uzumeri did some investigating and a bit of speculating.
DC comics bootleg sites start posting one at a time on Wednesday afternoon, but MARVEL scans pop up all at once, before the digital releases at 2 P.M ET. This makes it appear as if the DC comics come from hackers who can get into comiXology, but the Marvel scans are from somewhere else.
David Brothers went over some of the clues — the uniform size and quality of the Marvel scans, the placement of titles and credits, information that would only appear on a print comic, and some very telling errors — and concluded that “Someone’s got Marvel’s print-ready files before they’re finalized, and they’re slapping them up online as digital scans."
While it remains to be seen who would risk thier job and deal a hit to Marvel, but money is a possibility. But then again, there isn't much profit in pirating comis, if any at all. Comics has some fanatic fans, so it could be someone who loves comics but is disgruntled at Marvel. Who knows?
Here's an example. Can you spot the differences and figure out which one is the pirated copy?
UPDATE: According to a recent CBR update to the original report, the "mole" or "hack" is not a person at all but an undisclosed security leak.
Personally, I think it was Colonel Mustard in the library with a candlestick. Who knows? It really is a mystery who is doing it, but it justs shows that in this case piracy is somehow connected to the source. What do you think? Sound off below!
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