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Originally Posted by Novem5er JohnSnow, I accept your opinion and I always value your posts. No hard feelings, on my part, for any of this.
That said, I think you're arguing against yourself now. You say it's okay to copy a couple pages or to let a few people benefit without having paid for it . . . because it's not hurting anyone? But you're saying that 9,000 downloads is NOT okay because . . . it surely IS hurting someone? You put that burden of proof on me, but isn't it the prosecution's job to provide evidence of guilt? |
The distinction I'm drawing has nothing to do with "someone being hurt." It has everything to do with the doctrine of "fair use." What constitutes "fair use" is well-established in the United States (and the U.S. has a pretty liberal viewpoint on the subject, I might add).
It's okay to copy a couple pages for your own use because, well, it's
your book. It's okay to share it with a few other people (especially if they're members of your gaming group), as long as you don't make any money, because, again, you've paid for the book and have the right to "use it." All these things constitute YOU using the book - "fair use" as it were. (Moderately off-topic, this is why the RIAA's arguments are total crap. Making a digital copy of your CD is fair use. Making 10 digital copies of your CD is
probably still "fair use." Somewhere between there and 100, we definitely leave the bounds of "fair use.")
By the time you're distributing copies over the internet free to people you don't even no, you're no longer talking about "fair use" of the book (or whatever). Because at this point, you're not using it, but rather "distributing it." And, beyond passing on the physical copy (and, by the way, not keeping a digital one), you just don't have any right to do that. The rights to the content go along with the physical book. The only grey area here is if by accident or theft, you lose your physical copy, but I digress.
Clearly, this totally ignores things like "what a person can memorize." Obviously, if you can memorize a book, you can "use it" as long as you want. This is because (at least now) no control can be maintained over what people think. "Thought police" (so far, at least) remains just a joke.
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Originally Posted by Novem5er No, if you read my other posts, I'm not claiming that we just spread free RPG books around the net, nor any other form of knowledge. What I'm saying is that any source of knowledge HAS to be financially supported, but by far fewer people than the number that actually benefit from that knowledge. |
I know you aren't claiming that. However, I just wanted to clarify that my position has nothing to do with any theory about "harm" and everything with the distinction between what constitutes "fair use" and what qualifies as "distribution."
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