I knew it was bound to happen, but more and more I’ve getting wind of Bit Torrent sites that are posting complete digital versions of our copyrighted books and magazines, for anyone to download for free. If you’re one of the culprits out there, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor (or at least deluding yourself into believing that), let me clarify things for you.

If you’re illegally posting or downloading copyrighted material (ours or anyone else’s), you’re hurting the very companies whose work you seem to enjoy enough to spend the time stealing. And make no mistake; if you’re not paying for it, you’re stealing it. You can try to justify it, but there’s simply no real justification for it. You are taking money out of the pockets of our editors and authors, and comic shop owners, and hurting TwoMorrows’ bottom line. Particularly in this unstable economy, with sales dropping for all publishers across the board, every sale we lose to a free torrent download hurts really badly, and jeopordizes our future.

If you enjoy, say, the Modern Masters books, support us. Tell your friends about them, and buy a copy for yourself. And if you have downloaded a copy, do the right thing; go out and purchase the print edition. But please don’t give away our hard work. When our sales erode due to these torrents, the end result is we simply won’t be able to keep publishing—we’ll be out of business.

We’re not some giant corporation with deep pockets, who can absorb these losses. We’re a small company, with dozens of hard working creators, slaving away day and night and on weekends, to make a pretty minimal amount of income for all this hard work. Don’t rob us of the small amount of compensation we’re already getting. Doing so just ensures there won’t be any future products to download.