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[DerekSTheRed]

Originally Posted by Cirex

Sorry, that's not a fact. It's not even close to a true statement. It's a point so easy to take down that if I download the same copy 500 times, according to you, I have caused the loss of 500 potentially sold books.

That's false.

I will use the example I used above. If anyone, right now, downloads 30, 50, 200 D&D books, are they causing an economical harm to WotC? Nope, because that person wouldn't have bought those 30, 50 or 200 books anyways.

I know it's a hard concept, but it's the truth. If I grab any random hard drive, out of anyone, mine, my brother, my friends, a lawyer, a teacher, a member of the Senate, a Government worker, I will find an amount of downloaded stuff, be it 1gb, be it 1 tb. The amount of money that would have been spent on that stuff if the download was not available would be close to zero.

I'd like to make a point I read on slashdot that sums up the way I feel. There is a difference between finite and renewable resources. Information is renewable i.e. copying doesn't degrade the original. However, the time it takes to create that information is finite i.e. people don't live forever.

You're not being asked to pay for information, you're being asked to pay for the time (and by extension creativity) it takes to create that information. In that regard, illegal downloading without paying for the physical books is morally wrong since you're not paying your share of that designer's time.

The question then becomes does it really affect WotC sales significantly. That is not so clear cut. I do think, it's in the best interest of copyright holders to do a base level of copyright theft prevention. Just do enough to keep the honest people honest and that's it. It's not worth the trouble to do more then that.

Derek