Piracy comic books

In a topic that was locked, someone asked if there is a site where you can download free DC and Marvel comic books. Someone else answered doing that is illegal. Now my question is, When Marvel offers free comic books, and you download them, is that considered piracy because you didn't pay for them?

@catsnlynne: No, because Marvel gave you permission to have some for free. Those other sites give away copies of comics that the companies haven't given permission for you have for free.

It's like the difference between a free sample and shoplifting. If there's free bits of cheese on offer at the cheese counter and you take one, that's fine, but if you take some cheese that's for sale from the shelf and leave the shop without paying for it, that's not cool.

That may have sounded odd, but I'm sure you get what I mean. :)

Piracy is when you steal it not when the company gives it to you for free.

Yes, I understood what you meant.

It's not stealing though, it's copying. And if you copy things that are out of print, is that still piracy?

It is if its trademarked, copying is an unauthorized form of reproduction.

"Piracy: the unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted book, recording, television program, patented invention, trademarked product, etc."

I'm also not trying to get into a piracy debate or anything hell I love stealing sh#t even my avatar has a little notice in the top corner saying its not for free use.

When the company that owns a property makes it available for free, it's not piracy.

I'm no saint, but I have the opinion that if the companies that make my preferred comics, video games, music etc., I have to keep paying for them, or they'll stop producing them. Voting with the wallet, so to speak.

I do have another question though: I have noticed that there are a LOT of scans of comics around, often half a comic or more (not so much here though). Does DC and Marvel just not care if people scan all of a comic, or are there any special rules (or lack of) in this area? I'm a librarian in an academic library, and I deal a lot with digital licenses; the terms of these are extremely prohibitive when it comes to scanning and distributing articles. They are enforced too; I have heard of libraries that's been sued because they sent an article by email to a student. It just seems strange that there are so many scans everywhere that comics are discussed.