Moderators for Scans_Daily are considering limiting access to the online community after its host received takedown notices from Marvel on Thursday concerning 17 posts that contained copyrighted material.

The six-year-old community has frequently been at odds with publishers, creators and retailers over Scans_Daily members posting excerpts from comic books, sometimes only hours after their release. Tensions came to a head in late February, when LiveJournal shut down the community, forcing members to move first to InsaneJournal and then to current host Dreamwidth.

It's Dreamwidth that received the Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notices last night. According to a post by a moderator in a thread that now may only be viewed by Scans_Daily members, the host determined that, "because none of the images in the individual posts are hosted on Dreamwidth's servers, they do not need to take further action. ... However, Marvel may contact individual image hosts and request copyright infringing material be removed."

The 17 comics in question range from Strange #2 and X-Force Annual #1 to Daredevil #78-#79 and Uncanny X-Men #517, all posted within the past two weeks. Community rules permit members to post "No more than 1/3rd the length of any single work," which for the average monthly comic means seven pages.

According to moderator "angelophile," the takedown notices pose "a quandary for the mod team."

"While we agree that Scans_Daily should be a completely open community," the moderator writes, "there’s no doubt that being open to casual browsers makes us a target for further action of this kind. ... There is an option to make Scans_Daily 'members only' so that only members will be able to read posts in the future, but keeping the membership open so anyone could join. That would ensure the community was still open to all, but limit how visible it is online."

(via notscans_daily)