Product Identity & Formatting

[hudarklord]

Howdy, folks.

I'm working on a PDF d20 accessory. I want to open up the text as Open Game Content, but I'd still like to sell some products. I am wondering how people prevent others from _legally_ (piracy aside) making copies of their PDFs and distributing them. Here's my point -- if you don't put in border art or PI the formatting, etc. then people can strip out the PI on your cover page and just redistribute your PDF ad nauseum or photocopy it and distribute it ad nauseum.

Pirates aside, what's the best way to open up content but keep people from having 100% permission to distribute your document:

1) border art on every page?

2) PI'ing the format and locking down the PDF security, but distributing the text as open content in a separate file?

3) other ideas?

Maybe this is not a concern. I have no problem with people distributing the content, but I'd like to sell a few copies of my formatted materials instead of letting people freely distribute the nicely formatted stuff.

Thanks for any advice,
Lee

[HellHound]

1. Make sure to indicate that your trade dress, logos, name of product, name of company and so on are Product Identity.

2. Indicate that the entire work is Copyright.

Therefore, if you Publisher X wants to use the product content as OGC, he will have to take the content and reformat it before it can be redistributed.

[tensen]

Remember.. A product's content may be OGC, however the layout always falls under copyright.

Taken this way...
an art book may include may images of public domain art. This does not mean you are allowed to photocopy it and display the pages... since the work itself is copyrighted.

[hudarklord]

I actually have a substantially greater understanding of Title 17 and the OGL than my initial post must have conveyed. If you read my original post you'll see that I mentioned two options, so I clearly understand that there are options and, in general, I can think of what they are.

However, I've also seen Hellhound's posts on PDF security and access to OGC materials. I don't entirely agree that locking down the PDF from text extraction stops people from using your OGC. In fact, there are an enormous number of print-only products that are Section 15'd all the time. However, with his comments in mind I posted my question.

I've asked a very specific question. I can certainly protect the formatting of the document using the OGL's section 1(e) and declaring the format as Product Identity. I could also de facto do it by including a light watermark and border that is artwork and PI my artwork instead.

I'm asking whether people think either of these is:

a) worthwhile OR
b) necessary

for protecting the profession version of my materials.


Here's my take. My father always said "locks keep out honest people". He always said that if you had a locked window with a million in cash on the other side of it, the honest person walking by might be tempted to steal with it, but would relent when he realized he'd have to break the locked window open to get the cash. The real thief will just grab a brick, break the window, and run with the money.

I'm wondering just how high of a barrier is useful to remind people that they shouldn't be running off a dozen copies and circulating it, but fully well realize that pure electronic piracy and distribution of the PDF will make piracy trivial for anyone who is dedicated to the cause.

I also want to make sure I have SOMETHING PI'd about the document (border art, text formatting, etc.) to make sure that my PDF sales don't take a nose dive after the first person gets a copy of it since an enormous amount of my product will be OGC.

I'm mostly trying to ascertain what is:

a) effective in stopping John Doe pretty honest guy from running off a dozen copies

b) least annoying to the end user

c) effective in distinguishing my product from the OGC that people can extract from it


Mongoose Publishing in some of their works alternates between a watermark, an art border, or block art to make it obvious when something is a copy of their original book.

So, after hearing Hellhound caution against locking the PDF down and after seeing people whine about Mongoose's watermarks I figured I'd take a poll on the options people are employing to keep their PDF sales alive while minimizing end user annoyance.

Hopefully that clarifies things.

My personal preference is to PI the format.

Thanks ever so much,
Lee

[jmucchiello]

Originally posted by hudarklord
Here's my take. My father always said "locks keep out honest people".

Your father is right. Listen to him.

a) effective in stopping John Doe pretty honest guy from running off a dozen copies

This hurts you how? Have you never borrowed a friends copy of a book you did not own and use the ideas therein? Afterward did you run out and buy the book because you owed it to the copyright owner? Of course you didn't. Don't sweat John Doe giving a copy to his play group. That's 12 more people who might buy your next product without John Doe copying it for them.

Of course, you can look at old posts of mine and discover I expect people to share my work with their DMs/players since if they don't, my works are worthless. "Hey guys I want to use this cool spell but you have to go buy your own copy of the PDF since I'm not allowed to copy it." Get real.

b) least annoying to the end user

Wide open. Some people include RTF files of the OGC text in a separate file along with the PDF.

c) effective in distinguishing my product from the OGC that people can extract from it

You forget that the easiest way to "steal" your PDF is to copy it verbatim. This form of copying keeps you copyright notice intact. It tells the receiver that you own the work. And in the case of people who download illegal copies of copyrighted works it does not stop them at all. Thus, why should you worry about making it hard to copy part of the work when copying the whole work is easy.

My personal preference is to PI the format.

The format is a theme? a person? which thing is the format that is listed in the definition of PI that allows you to PI it? If I read that the format of the book was PId I'd laugh my head off. Why would you care that someone is reusing your formatting? All that means is that their works will remind others of yours.

Putting watermarks and heavy graphical borders will only annoy people who don't want to use up a whole printer cartridge printing your book. By detering the honest people from printing your book, you make your book less useful. You make it less likely that potential new customers will see your works and you make it less likely that your material will be used at all. Isn't the whole point of writing this stuff to get people to use your stuff? You can't be doing this for the money.

If you are really so paranoid about casual users copying your work, perhaps PDF format is not for you. Only release print products.

Everything I release is 100% OGC. The only PI in most of it is my company name and the name of the product. Both of these things are printed (at 9pt) on the bottom of alternating pages. What more do you really need?

[tensen]

Speaking from the point of view of a company that release all text as OGC... we still get sales and get paid.

Our product are being pirated. I see it, I know it. Whether or not it was OGC, it would still be pirated. Just look at all the WOTC material that is. Or Monte Cook's.

Of course we do work a lot with layout and art in our product. obviously someone could go out and use the OGC in their own product.. which people have. And we also provide the word doc format of the materials if a publisher asks for sections of it. (Most publishers can also get a comp copy of the PDF if they ask too.)

If I see a copy of our art and layout on a document under another company's name... we would prosecute. I can't imagine that company would make enough money appropriating our material that they could afford legal action.

[hudarklord]

Originally posted by jmucchiello
You forget that the easiest way to "steal" your PDF is to copy it verbatim. Thus, why should you worry about making it hard to copy part of the work when copying the whole work is easy.

Actually, I didn't forget it at all. In fact I went on a rather long diatribe noting that I was not trying to find a way to prevent people from pirating things -- that's an exercise in futility.

The format is a theme? a person? which thing is the format that is listed in the definition of PI that allows you to PI it? If I read that the format of the book was PId I'd laugh my head off. Why would you care that someone is reusing your formatting? All that means is that their works will remind others of yours.

No, Joe, the format is a format and it is an element listed in the OGL that can be PI'd. Check out the OGL. Laugh all you want. It's an element subject to PI. Probably because, in a text only OGC product, PI'ing the format, or putting your trademark on the border margin of every page, is the only way to protect your document from resale "as is".

If you want, not to be agressive, but as a thought exercise, finish your latest PDF project. Make sure it has no artwork in it. Open up 100% of the content as OGC. I can 24 hours later come up with a new title page and undercut your price by 3 dollars and sell EXACTLY the same product, killing your sales and making free profit for little more than an hour of work. When 100% of a product's text is OGC, Joe, then unless there is border art, a trademark on every page, PI'd formatting, or extensive use of PI'd images then people can resell your product 24 hours after you list it and crush the life out of your sales. The only thing that would save your sales would be people who actually found out about this and wanted to pay you more money than they could otherwise pay me for the same product. Now clearly I have no intention of doing anything like this, but I also don't want other people to do it to me either.

Every PDF product I've seen has either extensive use of border art or some kind of trademark on every page. Without that, the PDF could be freely distributed ad nauseum, minus its title page. That's a REAL disincentive for people trying to make even a small profit from their PDF games. And, I suspect, that beyond simply making the document appear attractive, it's one of the big reasons why people use these per page trademarks, borders, etc.

Isn't the whole point of writing this stuff to get people to use your stuff? You can't be doing this for the money.

I can't be doing this for a lot of money, but then again, I don't plan on doing it for free either.

If you are really so paranoid about casual users copying your work, perhaps PDF format is not for you. Only release print products.

Actually, either I am not conveying myself well or you just have not read my posts at all. I can't say which. I'm fully well aware of things like piracy (which I mentioned multiple times in spite of the fact that you claimed that I was unaware of it). I'm primarily interested in making sure my PDF has a sales life longer than 24 hours.

If you notice one of my other recent threads, I'm considering releasing the PDF sans art because so many people complain about art work eating up their printer ink. However, if I do that, then I need either to PI the document format or use border art.

I am also curious (though not sold on the notion), that if there were some art on each page (a border, etc.) that the casual user would be less likely to hand out 10 copies of the document to all their friends. I am not convinced of this however. Nor am I convinced that it's at all necessary or effective.

So the primary hurdle I'm interested in setting up is to prevent my PDF from being resold 24 hours later and border art or PI'ing the document format seems to be the easiest way to go.

Everything I release is 100% OGC. The only PI in most of it is my company name and the name of the product. Both of these things are printed (at 9pt) on the bottom of alternating pages. What more do you really need?

If that's your proposal for the best way to mark the product to keep your product having more than a 24 hour print life, then it's a good suggestion, and I thank you for that.

I look forward to buying your April product release, Joe.

Cheers,
Lee

[hudarklord]

Originally posted by tensen
Speaking from the point of view of a company that release all text as OGC... we still get sales and get paid.

That's very useful information. Thanks.

Our product are being pirated. I see it, I know it. Whether or not it was OGC, it would still be pirated. Just look at all the WOTC material that is. Or Monte Cook's.

I'm not so concerned about things being pirated by people dedicated to the mission. I'm really only interested in two things:

a) creating a really minimal hurdle which makes fairly honest people realize that there's something on the page they shouldn't be copying

b) that there's something on each page that prevents people from just re-exporting my document with a new title page and undercutting me on sales 24 hours after I release it -- formatting, border art, trademarks, something, that's PI'd


Your advice here suggests that (if I understood you appropriately), that so long as it is well-marketed, people will continue to "come to the source" to purchase the original material no matter how much of it you release as OGC.

That's very useful information. Thanks very much.

[tensen]

Remember, that if you do not OGC material, it automatically falls under normal copyright rules. There isn't a need to PI art or formatting. PI is there so that you can easily break off a section from designation of OGC. Meaning you could apply OGC to all text, and state the specific spell names as PI.


Now if you entire document is plain text... unless you are using a good variety of fonts in your document or interesting style of layout, it might be hard to show you document as a unique format. In which case you probably have to make sure to have a lawyer that is better than theirs. But I seriously doubt such a situation would occur.

Reasons
1) They will still have to list your product in the Section 15.... and the chance that one customer might buy both the products and make a public outcry is extremely probable.
2) An references that might occur in your product to others of your products would have to be notes as "used with permission"... and as such they better get your permission.
3) Any chance that company has of making another product is extremely unlikely. And likely they will be unable to answer even the simplest questions that customers ask about the product.
4) Any fairly honest person wouldn't want to copy that much of your product and try and pass it off as their own.

[Morrus]

You know, in every Nat20 product we released, this didn't even occur to me. We just designated all text as OGC, and that's it. There was certainly no strategy involved in PIing layout or borders or anything like that. We've not had the scenario you describe happen, and, to be honest, I really can't imagine it happening. It's a little like worrying about being struck by lightning - it ain't gonna happen!


Besides, even if somebody DID do that, they wouldn't get very far. None of the e-stores would touch it. None of the news sites would hype it (certainly I wouldn't). They wouldn't affect your sales one iota.

Really, don't worry about it.

[hudarklord]

Originally posted by Morrus
Besides, even if somebody DID do that, they wouldn't get very far. None of the e-stores would touch it. None of the news sites would hype it (certainly I wouldn't). They wouldn't affect your sales one iota.

Really, don't worry about it.

A great answer. Thanks.

Lee

[jmucchiello]

Originally posted by hudarklord

A great answer. Thanks.

That's what I've been trying to say.

If you release 100% OGC, what stops someone from pulling the file into a distiller, ripping out your artwork and borders and stuff? Nothing. So your senario of copying my PDF and sell it for $3 less is still viable, it just takes a few more minutes of work your way. The reason most of us don't worry about that is because RPGNow most likely would not host the second PDF.

[hudarklord]

Originally posted by jmucchiello

A great answer. Thanks.

That's what I've been trying to say.

If you release 100% OGC, what stops someone from pulling the file into a distiller, ripping out your artwork and borders and stuff? Nothing. So your senario of copying my PDF and sell it for $3 less is still viable, it just takes a few more minutes of work your way. [/quote]

Thus the reason I've considered extracting the text as unformatted ASCII and then locking down the PDF itself with a password. That way the user has all the information he needs to port my own OGC for his personal use or for inclusion in other publications.

The reason most of us don't worry about that is because RPGNow most likely would not host the second PDF.

As Morrus already commented on this, this was a piece of data that I did not have, and which may have softened most of my concerns.

[jgbrowning]

We've taken a different approach. We've made everything OGC, even the flavor bits. We believe that "If someone's gonna rip you off, they're gonna rip you off." This does mean that if someone wants they could simply copy the entirety of our book and sell it for $5 instead of $10. So far no one has, and I have faith in people using this new medium not to.

And if they do, well shame on them. Honestly, I'd have no recourse against them even if I did IP my stuff. I simply don't have the desire to spend the amount of money needed for legal fees to support my rights. I could, but then I'd loose all my already slim profits.

joe b.

[jmucchiello]

Originally posted by hudarklord
Thus the reason I've considered extracting the text as unformatted ASCII and then locking down the PDF itself with a password. That way the user has all the information he needs to port my own OGC for his personal use or for inclusion in other publications.

But that is very inconvenient to the customer. I'm looking at the screen and want these three paragraphs. I have to open the ASCII document, somehow find those three paragraphs in a sea of text, and copy them. Very annoying.

Never forget this poll .

[Mark]

Originally posted by jmucchiello
But that is very inconvenient to the customer. I'm looking at the screen and want these three paragraphs. I have to open the ASCII document, somehow find those three paragraphs in a sea of text, and copy them. Very annoying.

Sounds like the SRD to me...

I'm not so sure that the vast majority of people cut and paste a whole lot. I know some do, and it is true that method might be a bit inconvenient in some ways, but in others it sounds more convenient. Unless I am misunderstanding what is being proposed. *shrug*

[rpghost]

Originally posted by hudarklord
If you want, not to be agressive, but as a thought exercise, finish your latest PDF project. Make sure it has no artwork in it. Open up 100% of the content as OGC. I can 24 hours later come up with a new title page and undercut your price by 3 dollars and sell EXACTLY the same product, killing your sales and making free profit for little more than an hour of work.

Accept that I wouldn't let that happen and RPGNow represents about 75% of all indie PDF sales on the internet right now.

Not that I want to be the police, but we do take down product that is not in compliance or obviously crap like this.

James
http://www.RPGNow.com

[hudarklord]

Originally posted by rpghost


Accept that I wouldn't let that happen and RPGNow represents about 75% of all indie PDF sales on the internet right now.

Not that I want to be the police, but we do take down product that is not in compliance or obviously crap like this.

James
http://www.RPGNow.com

As I've said before, since people have mentioned that you police matters like this and it was my primary concern, then my concerns are now much more limited. Thanks for the reply.

Cheers,
Lee Valentine

PS Kudos on your increasing sales trends -- I saw a sales chart a little while ago and it looked promising.

[jmucchiello]

Originally posted by Mark
Sounds like the SRD to me...

I'm not so sure that the vast majority of people cut and paste a whole lot. I know some do, and it is true that method might be a bit inconvenient in some ways, but in others it sounds more convenient. Unless I am misunderstanding what is being proposed. *shrug*

How could it be more convenient to be looking right at what you want to copy in the PDF and then having to find it again in another file so you can do the copy? About the only thing that might be more convenient is copying a table.

[Nellisir]

I'm still on the consumer side of the board, not publisher, but I don't see legal reprintings of OGC as a (current) problem. I'm not aware of any competing versions of the same product, and I wouldn't support a company that engages in such practices. I'd assume that the title and credits are not OGC -- assuming those pages are included in the main document, that alone prevents a casual copyist from simply reposting the document to RPGNow. Once you get into having to strip off the title & credits page, it's not a big leap to simply grab all the text, create a new document, and send it along to RPGNow (who will send it right back with a big no thank you anyways).

As you've noted, you aren't going to stop (or even slow down) the pirate, and you aren't going to defer the guy handing out a few copies to his gaming group -- he's not looking for profit, he's not posting them on the internet, and he's not worried about legality. Morality, maybe, but not legality.

Frankly, if I were to do something like this, I'd pick on the big sellers. Librum Equalus anyone?

On other related topics...I'd include border art, just because it looks pretty. B&w, pen & ink style, some knotwork or something. Nothing heavy.

As far as culling OGC into a separate document -- I think it's a good thing. It removes all question of OGC, and rtf is simple to deal with. I read the product for use, but when cutting out OGC, I'd always look to a txt or rtf version first.

Cheers
Nell.