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However, if you sat down and started copying verbatim a book, I think even Barnes & Noble would have problems with that.
I've seen people sit there for hours and hours, with a stack of papers that could be a verbatim copy. The bookstore doesn't look at what you're writing down, so they cannot tell the difference. One dude might very well be making a "verbatim copy".
But hey, the rest of us are only speaking from experience.
Cheers, -- N
PS: (Pssst! If you go into any library, you'll see photocopy machines! You must destroy all of them for the moral health of humanity!)
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I've seen people sit there for hours and hours, with a stack of papers that could be a verbatim copy. The bookstore doesn't look at what you're writing down, so they cannot tell the difference. One dude might very well be making a "verbatim copy".
But hey, the rest of us are only speaking from experience.
Cheers, -- N
PS: (Pssst! If you go into any library, you'll see photocopy machines! You must destroy all of them for the moral health of humanity!)
I think for the most part, (especially in the big chains) the guy getting paid low wages to lug books around doesn't really care what you're doing, so long as it doesn't get him in direct trouble (and especially if doing something about it will create more work for him.)
The guy who is that guy's boss, and spends most of his time in his office doing paperwork, might have more to say about your sitting and copying the book verbatim.
The reason you guys are getting pushback is because reasonable statements like yours appear to be the first in a long chain of argumentation that seems to go like-
1. Its not theft, its infringement. That is totally different.
2. Blah blah blah
3. Blah
4. More blah
5. Steal underpants
6. ...
7. WOOKIES! On ENDOR! That doesn't make any SENSE!
8. Therefore its ok to download copyrighted stuff we haven't bought, or at least its wrong to criticize people who do.
I haven't made that argument. I am just refuting the equally silly argument that leads to, "Therefore, it's okay to threaten teenagers with prison time and $100,000 judgments for sharing files with their friends under circumstances that in many countries qualifies as equivalent to the doctrine of fair use."
You wouldn't shiv someone's grandma, would you? Then why would you LET SOMEONE READ A PDF OVER YOUR SHOULDER WHO HASN'T PAID FOR IT? Deviltry, no less.
I'm really tired of people equating absolute morality with what are necessarily arbitrary prerogatives created by copyright law. There are ways to talk about what should be done that don't devolve into "Infringing is stealing, exactly like stealing, and stealing is wrong, therefore every C&D letter is holy writ."
I've seen people sit there for hours and hours, with a stack of papers that could be a verbatim copy. The bookstore doesn't look at what you're writing down, so they cannot tell the difference. One dude might very well be making a "verbatim copy".
But hey, the rest of us are only speaking from experience.
Cheers, -- N
PS: (Pssst! If you go into any library, you'll see photocopy machines! You must destroy all of them for the moral health of humanity!)
Um, that's a weird argument.
If this was legal, then you could go down you your local kinko's and get any book in its entirety photocpied.
There's an implicit understanding most publishers of books work under. Namely, that their readers will and do copy a few pages out of any published work.
It's wholesale copying of a book which any publisher will frown on.
If this was legal, then you could go down you your local kinko's and get any book in its entirety photocpied.
There's an implicit understanding most publishers of books work under. Namely, that their readers will and do copy a few pages out of any published work.
It's wholesale copying of a book which any publisher will frown on.
Who said anything about whether it was legal? All anyone is saying is that it's (a) possible, and (b) in practise, unlikely to get you kicked out of a B&N or other big chain bookstore.
Bad enough so many people here are confusing what's legal with what's moral, without people confusing what's legal with what's possible as well.
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At least in Germany, but I think in most countries, there are regulations that add some cost to CDs, DVDs or video and audio cassettes that is used to pay off the potential of people multiplying and sharing copyrighted work, be it by recording TV or burning a CD copy for a friend.
An approach for dealing with copyright in the future might be to extend this, too. In Germany, I think this is sometimes to refered as a "culture flatrate".
Everyone pays a monthly or yearly fee that is used to pay off IP creators, and everyone can freely share. Of course, the challenges are ensuring that there is a fair way to determine how to split the money, and that the fee is large enough to cover all the IP creators. So it might remain problematic, but I am not that familiar with the specific suggestions. I think there are still concepts for paying for individual products - like a CD in a music shop. And some say it would just be a supplementary system and live a fringe life.
I generally thing that subscription based services to _access_ downloads might be the way of the future for digital media. You pay a fee each months and can download X media titles per month. One you downloaded them, they are yours. Maybe if you somehow lose them, you can get them back even if you no longer pay for the service (or you repay for the service and already downloaded packages do not count against your limits).
The challenge of every approach is to balance the chance for the creators of IP to get payed for their work and the interests of the customer for easy access.
Especially since probably both customer and the IP creators want too much for themselves.
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I'm really tired of people equating absolute morality with what are necessarily arbitrary prerogatives created by copyright law.
I'm really tired of people denying that they aren't downloading libraries of books, music and movies from the internet so they can play without paying.
*sigh*
Here's the thing:
I'm sure that there are several* people who are obtaining files just to give them the once-over, like browsing in a bookstore. I don't have a problem with that. I know that there are several* people who are obtaining files so that they don't have to pay for them. That I have a problem with.
The number of files downloaded is so massive I find it disingenuous to hear that it has no effect on sales. For the PHB 2 the number of download is an order of magnitude greater than the books sold. Again, I'm sure there a number of people who just previewed it. Some downloaded it just to stash in a hard drive next to their copy of Corel Draw and Oracle that they never use either. I don't particularly like that, but they're an example of Imban's "not a lost sale".
Then there are the people who download it because they didn't want to pay retail price. They use the data and they found a way around paying for it. That's wrong. Those are lost sales.
Photocopying a couple pages out of a book for reference out of a library? That's fine.
Downloading an entire, just published text so that you don't have to pay the cover price? Not okay.
Where do you think the line should be?
* For some value greater than 1 and less than "most".
__________________ "People need vision.
Sometimes you just have to add spices without a recipie."
- My wonderful wife.
The number of files downloaded is so massive I find it disingenuous to hear that it has no effect on sales. For the PHB 2 the number of download is an order of magnitude greater than the books sold.
You can find it disingenuous all you want, but you're doing so despite evidence to the contrary. You've been linked to studies earlier in this thread that indicate that file sharing has no effect on sales, and a few that indicate that it has a positive effect.
You don't know what effect it had, you're making assumptions that aren't grounded in fact.
At least in Germany, but I think in most countries, there are regulations that add some cost to CDs, DVDs or video and audio cassettes that is used to pay off the potential of people multiplying and sharing copyrighted work, be it by recording TV or burning a CD copy for a friend.
In Italy there is a similar tax.
__________________ 'Can a magician kill a man by magic?' Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. 'I suppose a magician might,' he admitted, 'but a gentleman never could.'
You've been linked to studies earlier in this thread that indicate that file sharing has no effect on sales, and a few that indicate that it has a positive effect.
That's a good point. I'll give them a critical look. Part of my job is evaluating studies to screen for special interest bias so this should be interesting.
__________________ "People need vision.
Sometimes you just have to add spices without a recipie."
- My wonderful wife.
Release it via DDI. This would be great. WotC would have maximal control for that and DDI would get more subscribers.
Many buyers of PDF buy hard cover as well. It would be great if there would be a code in PDF which would serve like a discount coupon for hard cover book. This would increase sale of books and if somebody put the PDF to share, there would be definetely somebody who use the pirate code and disclose the source very soon.
The discount coupon would be really useful if it would be attached to Kindle document format (instead of PDF) so Amazon would give the discount to hard cover books ordered via Amazon and earn more money this way.
Release it via DDI. This would be great. WotC would have maximal control for that and DDI would get more subscribers.
Many buyers of PDF buy hard cover as well. It would be great if there would be a code in PDF which would serve like a discount coupon for hard cover book. This would increase sale of books and if somebody put the PDF to share, there would be definetely somebody who use the pirate code and disclose the source very soon.
The discount coupon would be really useful if it would be attached to Kindle document format (instead of PDF) so Amazon would give the discount to hard cover books ordered via Amazon and earn more money this way.
A big interest in PDFs exists for out-of-print books from previous editions. I am not sure anyone would want to subscribe to DDI just for that. Though maybe the basic facilities of DDI can be used to create access. Still, a problem remains - the digital book needs to be in a form that makes piracy hard to impossible, and that can hardly be guaranteed without considerably reducing the usability of the books, like having to be always online for reading.
Thoughts of the Arch Chancellor - My weblog on EN World - containing game related material, like: house rules, design theories, reviews, play reports, adventure ideas
Secret Member of <Think we would just hide our secret with a spoiler tag, eh?>
A quick thought. Since the crunch isn't generally protected (save in the form presented per normal copyright) if someone wanted to reproduce the mechanics of PHB2 and use them that'd be hard to stop. (I'm not commenting on the desirability of doing so.)
OTOH the fluff is generally protected through the use of distinctive names (tiefling, eladrin, Faerun, etc) or less distinctive names in specific contexts.
It's kind of amusing that Fluff is more protected than Crunch
Huh, this is an interesting idea. As DM, you have a certain amount of authority to control what is and isn't allowed, and leveraging that authority to prevent harmful piracy is compelling.
I wonder if this idea would catch on with DMs - it keeps your game on the moral up-and-up as well as helping the industry out.
I'm jumping six pages of thread here but let me just say that I do have this policy in my "Ground Rules" document.
Now, I can't, shouldn't, and don't have any right to dictate what my players do off the table, but if someone turns up with a printed version of a book I know they don't have, we're going to have words about it.
It's not realistically enforcable, but it is a position statement, and that's the best I can do.
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Who said anything about whether it was legal? All anyone is saying is that it's (a) possible, and (b) in practise, unlikely to get you kicked out of a B&N or other big chain bookstore.
Bad enough so many people here are confusing what's legal with what's moral, without people confusing what's legal with what's possible as well.
Perhaps I read it wrong but Nifft seemed to be implying that copying books were legal since you could do it in a bookstore and not be kicked out. If he was not saying this , I apologize for mischaracterizing his statement.
re: Copyright Tax
Yeah, there is something similar in Canada. I assume that this would be the standard world-wide.
The number of files downloaded is so massive I find it disingenuous to hear that it has no effect on sales. For the PHB 2 the number of download is an order of magnitude greater than the books sold.
To be accurate, the 10:1 ratio for piracy to sales counted PDF sales only (here's the link to the discussion of Morrus's interview with Greg Leeds). Whether it changes the argument or not is a different question, but let's keep things clear.
Then there are the people who download it because they didn't want to pay retail price. They use the data and they found a way around paying for it. That's wrong. Those are lost sales.
Then there are those who use the books of others in their group, use the data, and never pay for it themselves. Those seem to be the same kind of "lost sale" as acquiring free copies, but not infringing and not wrong.
If the downloads were a pure lend service, (only one copy exists, just used by different people at different times) that would not be copywrite infringement and the copywrite holders would still "lose" those sales.
Further, these would only be lost sales if the person using the data would actually buy the book if they could not get it for free instead of doing without it.
I don't want to pay retail price for books. I buy cheap legal pdfs and used books, I borrow books from friends and the library, I give book suggestions when family members ask me what I'd like for a birthday gift. I found multiple ways to get around paying retail price for books and still use the data. I am not doing something wrong.
Still, a problem remains - the digital book needs to be in a form that makes piracy hard to impossible, and that can hardly be guaranteed without considerably reducing the usability of the books, like having to be always online for reading.
IMHO, the iTunes store shows all that's necessary is for legal purchase be slightly more convenient than piracy (and not punitively expensive).
Sure, some people will still choose unauthorized copying, but that's just how life is. Physical stores contend with shoplifters by taking reasonable measures to prevent shoplifting, and then pricing in theft (because making a store theft-proof would also make it customer-proof).
I've got some ideas on convenience features for legal purchasers, if WotC is interested in trying some carrot-centric tactics.
Cheers, -- N
__________________
Brevity is the soul of wit, so trim your sig or look dumb.
To be accurate, the 10:1 ratio for piracy to sales counted PDF sales only (here's the link to the discussion of Morrus's interview with Greg Leeds). Whether it changes the argument or not is a different question, but let's keep things clear.
I wish we had access to Amazon's sales numbers for 4e core books & gift sets.
We know the approximate date of the leaked PDFs hitting the internet. If we could see 4e's pre-order volume before, during, and after that period, I think it would be illuminating.
Cheers, -- N
__________________
Brevity is the soul of wit, so trim your sig or look dumb.
We know the approximate date of the leaked PDFs hitting the internet. If we could see 4e's pre-order volume before, during, and after that period, I think it would be illuminating.
Indeed, that would be great.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Voadam
Then there are those who use the books of others in their group, use the data, and never pay for it themselves. Those seem to be the same kind of "lost sale" as acquiring free copies, but not infringing and not wrong.
I don't want to pay retail price for books. I buy cheap legal pdfs and used books, I borrow books from friends and the library, I give book suggestions when family members ask me what I'd like for a birthday gift. I found multiple ways to get around paying retail price for books and still use the data. I am not doing something wrong.
No, you're not.
Do you honestly not see my point?
__________________ "People need vision.
Sometimes you just have to add spices without a recipie."
- My wonderful wife.
Last edited by Baron Opal; 2nd September 2009 at 04:44 PM..
Reason: A good point
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