Much like the music and movies industries before, the comic book industry has entered the digital markets and faces the unfair competition of unauthorized sources. I conduct a survey of comic book readers to analyse the relationship between the pirate channels and the sales of comic books from the top American publishers. My data allows me to construct a time panel of comics readers and calculate the substitution rate between the paid and unpaid channels of comics acquisition. I find that piracy is negatively related to comics sales though mainly those of limited series. Moreover, for digital comics the relationship is observable only for a smaller group of readers with high valuations of digital formats. I also show that the digital comics – both paid and unpaid – are typically considered as inferior by the readers. With the price of digitally released new comics set at the same level as their print versions, this suggests that readers who do not want to pay the full price for print copies are more likely to use pirate sources than to switch to legal digital channels. Still, both paid and unpaid readership is associated with higher interest in other types of comics-based media such as movies or video games. This suggests that comics piracy might carry some indirect positive effects. As this aspect could improve the negotiating position of comic book authors it should be studied further.

就像之前的音乐和电影行业一样，漫画行业也进入了数字市场，面临着未经授权来源的不公平竞争。我对漫画书读者进行调查，分析盗版渠道与美国顶级出版商漫画书销量之间的关系。我的数据让我可以构建一个漫画阅读器的时间面板，并计算付费和非付费漫画获取渠道之间的替代率。我发现盗版与漫画销售负相关，尽管主要是限量系列。此外，对于数字漫画而言，这种关系仅适用于对数字格式具有高估值的一小部分读者。我还表明，数字漫画——无论是付费的还是非付费的——通常都被读者认为是低劣的。由于数字发行的新漫画的价格与印刷版相同，这表明不想为印刷品支付全价的读者更有可能使用盗版资源，而不是转向合法的数字渠道。尽管如此，付费和非付费读者对其他类型的基于漫画的媒体（如电影或视频游戏）的兴趣更高。这表明漫画盗版可能会带来一些间接的积极影响。由于这方面可以提高漫画作者的谈判地位，因此应进一步研究。付费和非付费读者对其他类型的基于漫画的媒体（如电影或视频游戏）的兴趣更高。这表明漫画盗版可能会带来一些间接的积极影响。由于这方面可以提高漫画作者的谈判地位，因此应进一步研究。付费和非付费读者对其他类型的基于漫画的媒体（如电影或视频游戏）的兴趣更高。这表明漫画盗版可能会带来一些间接的积极影响。由于这方面可以提高漫画作者的谈判地位，因此应进一步研究。