An open letter to DriveThruRPG and the publishers using them

To begin, I would like to ask all post readers to only post questions and comments that DriveThruRPG and the publishers using DriveThruRPG can answer. I do not want to get into a tremendous debate on the usage of DRM, exclusivity, etc. Nor do I really want to get involved in accusatory and inflamatory exchanges. There are existing threads that debate these issues, let's leave those open for in-depth debate.

What I do want is to provide a clear thread that we can post questions in to state our (or maybe even just my) concerns so that the people involved can find ways to address these concerns. This might be change in policies, it might be posting clarifications on the DriveThruRPG website, it might be directly answering questions in this thread. To be clear, I do not expect this to "force" a solution on anyone. I just want DriveThruRPG and the publishers to be able to see the perceived problems without having to parse them out of the debates.

I would encourage any other potential customers that want to provide a calm assessment of your concerns to do so. If you are angry at DriveThruRPG and/or the publishers using DriveThruRPG, I would ask you to wait to cool off before posting here. Use the debates to clarify your position. Post your position here once you are calm, please.

A note to the Moderators: This thread might be more appropriate in a different forum. If so, please move it. If the conversation gets out of hand, I will also understand if you have to close it. This is a passionate subject. Oh, and if I have missed something that is clearly notable, please feel free to edit it in. Thanks.

For those people just joining the topic, where have you been?
Related Threads on EN World:
Update: Malhavoc PDFs no longer available at RPGnow (merged)
Will you be purchasing PDFs from DriveThruRPG?
DriveThruRPG Exclusivity
On second thought, DriveThruRPG isn't as bad as i initially thought...
And more, but this is a good start. If I have missed a big thread, please PM or email me.

An open letter to DriveThruRPG and associated publishers.

Hello, I am a potential customer. However, I have several concerns that are not immediately clear about DriveThruRPG, the products offered and how the methods of delivery and use will affect me.

To begin with, your recently added Privacy Policy does not make it entirely clear which information DriveThruRPG will collect or how long DriveThruRPG will retain this information. I am pleased that you have added a Privacy Policy, but it would help me, as a consumer, feel better about doing business with you if there was a little more information in your Privacy Policy.

I might add that the Direct Marketing Association web site can help generate a Privacy Policy, and the questionaire they provide might give you more ideas on the type of information consumers might be looking for in a Privacy Policy. I will attach a link in an effort to be helpful. DMA's Privacy Policy Generator

I also note that you are using DRM as supported in Adobe Reader 6.0. Though I have tried to look for it, I cannot find a summary of what information Adobe Reader will look at on my computer as it tries to validate my authority to read an E-Book purchased from DriveThruRPG. It would be very helpful to me if you could provide information on how this works, or at least a link to a summary on how it works so I can assess how intrusive Adobe Reader 6.0 will be to the information on my computer that I consider personal and private.

I have concerns on how many computers an Ebook purchased from DriveThruRPG can be read from. Adobe is inclined to tell me that it is only 1. Your FAQ indicates that I can use it on any computer I own. It would be helpful if you could provide more information on how this works since your statement is in direct conflict with Adobe's.

I also have concerns on which OS's are supported. I freely admit that this is not DriveThruRPG's responsibility to manage. However, if you can clearly provide advice on what software will allow a DriveThruRPG Ebook to be read on a variety of platforms, you will making it easier for some of your potential customers to make an educated decision on whether they can purchase and use your products. Even a confirmation that there is not software available on a given platform would seem to be better than allowing a customer to purchase a product and find out after the fact that they cannot use the software.

Because you are using DRM, I am also cautious on what my ability to use the Ebook will be if something should happen to DriveThruRPG and/or Adobe. I understand that these are matters that are mostly out of your immediate control. However, mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcies happen as a part of business. Surely Adobe and DriveThruRPG have technologies and plans in place to protect consumers against these types of business events?

I have concerns on how my rights of First Sale are affected by DRM on Ebooks purchased from DriveThruRPG. Is there any provision for me to purchase an Ebook as a gift for a friend? Is there any provision for me to decide that the Ebook is something that I no longer need and want to give to a friend? With hardcopy books, and with standard PDF's, I can easily exercise my rights of First Sale, but with DRM it seems one of the points is to prevent this.

I am also concerned about the integrity of the digital file. I appreciate DriveThruRPG's clarity that there will only be a single copy of the download provided. However, computer viruses and hard disk crashes happen. If you are using DRM, why is there a need for a limit on the downloads? Shouldn't the activation be sufficient to prove that only the purchaser is downloading the Ebook a second, or third, time? Perhaps the issue is broader than that, but if there is a way to allow multiple downloads in the event of hard drive catastrophe, I might feel more confident as a customer.

I would like to be clear that I respect the work of the various publishers and I enthusiastically support your rights to publish and sell your work. However, I am not overly comfortable with the limitations that DRM places on my ability to use your products. As a consumer, I would prefer a digital product that does not hinder my ability to use it on any computer I wish, without necessitating an internet connection I may or may not have at the time I need to validate the purchase. I recognize that DRM may provide a level of comfort regarding the protection of your products. But, this protection is heavy handed and disinclines me from being a customer. If the above issues can be addressed, I might feel more inclined to become a customer. If DRM can be replaced with a less heavy-handed technology, I think I would be an enthusiastic customer.

I understand that the digital market is not your primary market, but I am curious on what the target customer for each publisher is. My observation is that I am not the target customer for many of these publishers. Some of the printed books are available to me at lower prices than the digital version. Perhaps the target customer is somebody that does not have ready access to print copies? Perhaps the target customer is different for each publisher? I am not sure there is an easy answer or solution to this. However, I do know that I consider digital products to be valid products that can be equal or superior to print products.

There are some print products that I currently do not consider as something I will purchase because of an uncertainty that the product is something I will ever use. After all, we are talking about role-playing games here and if I cannot convince my friends to play the game with me, your product won't do me any good. As a consumer, I have used digital products as a trial to see if I will have use for a print product. I do not make any promises that a digital product will translate in the sale of a print product, but it is a possibility. Sometimes a lower priced digital product will help turn me into a happy customer for your print products. Sometimes it will be a product that I still will not purchase as a print product, even if I continue to purchase digital copies. I realize that one person's buying habits hardly dictate your marketing strategies, but I do want to point out one possible benefit to digital products.

Thank you for your time and interest in reading this.

David Moore

First, thanks for this. I really appreciate your thoughtful and respectful approach, as well as the opportunity to address multiple concerns in one place. Over the last few days, I've often chosen not to respond to some legitimate concerns simply because I felt I couldn't possibly keep up. This post is ridiculously long, so thanks in advance to anyone who slogs through it.

BardStephenFox said:

I have concerns on how my rights of First Sale are affected by DRM on Ebooks purchased from DriveThruRPG. Is there any provision for me to purchase an Ebook as a gift for a friend? Is there any provision for me to decide that the Ebook is something that I no longer need and want to give to a friend? With hardcopy books, and with standard PDF's, I can easily exercise my rights of First Sale, but with DRM it seems one of the points is to prevent this.

Click to expand...

I am not a lawyer. What follows is my interpretation of the relevant statutes and what their implications are. I've done a bit of research on the topic and feel that I am reasonably informed, but I'm not an expert and I could be wrong. This is especially true since one thing I am sure of is that the matter is decidedly unsettled. I also understand that this is a very heated issue that many people feel passionately about, and I hope that my personal position will not be seen as an attack on anyone's principles or values, even if they differ from mine. I respect that others have different views on these issues and can only hope that I am extended the same courtesy.

That said, here's my take. The First Sale doctrine, essentially, allows you to do what you want with the copy of a work you have purchased. It does not entitle you to copy or otherwise reproduce the copy you purchased, and it never has. Quite the contrary, the right of reproduction is one of the core rights--really the core right--that copyright law is meant to protect. The copyright holder may specifically grant you limited or unlimited rights to do so, but any such grant occurs outside the bounds of First Sale doctrine. For example, the publisher of a printed book may grant you permission to photocopy a character sheet, map, player handouts, or some other portion of the work. Likewise, a vendor at DTRPG may grant you permission to copy the work to other devices you own.

So, First Sale doctrine does not entitle you to make a copy or otherwise reproduce the copy of a work you have purchased. If you download an eBook from DTRPG to your hard drive, First Sale does not entitle you to copy that file to a CD, attach it to an email, upload it to a network, or print out a hardcopy reproduction, whether or not you subsequently delete or destroy the original, purchased copy. First Sale would entitle you to give away or sell your hard drive, which includes the purchased copy of the eBook.

Now, DTRPG and its vendors are extending you much broader rights than are provided by the First Sale doctrine. They are extending you the right to copy the eBook on other devices that you own (in whole or in part), and they are extending you the right to print the book in hardcopy form. I'm not construing this as any sort of altruism, BTW: These features are among those that give electronic media its value and utility. As the law currently stands, however, these rights are not mandated by First Sale--they are additional rights extended by the publisher/vendor (or, more precisely, sold by the publisher/vendor).

The value or utility of DRM to the publisher, while not an issue you specifically addressed, has also been the subject of much controversey here and elsewhere. I may as well take the opportunity to comment on that as well.

The question is, since pirates can circumvent DRM anyway, what does it actually accomplish other than inconveniencing some of our honest customers? For me, Adobe's DRM provides three main features: security, communication, and potential.

Security: This one is pretty limited. Most of our books have been pirated and are available on the Internet for free. Electronic versions are just going to make things easier for these hardcore pirates, and they're going to make the pirated copies of our work of higher quality. I can't possibly express how much it hurts to have one's work stolen--and not even by hardened criminals, but just by ordinary gamers who simply don't give a damn or, I guess, just enjoy the thrill of stealing. The fact is, though, there's virtually nothing we can do to stop this kind of theft. DRM certainly isn't going to do it--that's been pretty well documented.

DRM might, however, limit a more subtle and less malicious sort of "casual theft." This, for example, is the guy who downloads one of our eBooks and then makes copies for his friends or players. Maybe he's the DM. He downloads Midnight, and before he starts his campaign, he burns copies of all the rules chapters for his players. It's great, he figures, because now all the players can have their own copies of the rules without being tempted to read the juicy setting stuff. He may even forbid his players to buy a copy of the book, for fear that they might read something they're not supposed to. (BTW, would you guys be interested in "player's version" eBooks of things like Midnight, Dawnforge, and the Horizon minigames?) *This* guy might be less likely to commit this sort of piracy with DRM in place. And in my experience, this kind of piracy happens a lot--I know, because I've been offered just these sorts of CDs from my DMs.

Communication: This goes hand-in-hand with the previous point. DRM makes it very clear what rights the publisher of an eBook is selling and what rights the publisher is reserving. Sure, the customer can go ahead and crack the DRM if he wants to, but it will be pretty obvious when he's doing something the publisher didn't authorize him to do. This kind of integrated, clear definition of rights is extremely valuable to me for a number of reasons. For one, it should eliminate most unintentional piracy--some folks don't know a whole lot about copyright law and shouldn't be expected to learn it. At best, DRM can be a sort of integrated copyright tutorial that tells the customer exactly what he can and can't legally do with the copy of the work he purchased. Further, the more clearly I can define the rights I'm selling to my work and the rights I'm reserving (within the bounds of the law, of course), the more likely I am to be able to successfully defend those rights should the need, or opportunity, ever arise.

Potential: Adobe's DRM is far from foolproof. It's not 100% versatile and user-friendly. But it's better than other attempts that have been made in the past. I like Adobe. I'm an Adobe fanboy. I consider many of their products to be among the highest-quality, most useful software applications I have ever owned. So I trust their ability to do good work, to continue to innovate, to continue to improve their products. I believe that publishers need technological solutions to these issues we're discussing if electronic publishing is ever to reach its full potential, and I'm confident in Adobe's ability to provide those solutions. But I also recognize that the problems themselves often present a moving target, so I expect the solutions to be ongoing and never 100% perfect. I also want these solutions to be as user-friendly and non-intrusive as possible for my customers, and I trust Adobe to improve its product on that front as well. Some of this progress will require improvements in the technology, but some can be made through customer service. DTRPG, with help from Adobe, is already working on some possible solutions that may address some of the concerns about functionality that have been raised here.

Now, having said all that, I also understand if some of our potential customers are unwilling to purchase our eBooks. There are plenty of valid reasons, whether philosophical or practical, not to buy DRM-protected eBooks. I respect that and can only hope that the situation changes in the future.

I understand that the digital market is not your primary market, but I am curious on what the target customer for each publisher is. My observation is that I am not the target customer for many of these publishers. Some of the printed books are available to me at lower prices than the digital version. Perhaps the target customer is somebody that does not have ready access to print copies?

Click to expand...

That is, at least, the case for FFG. Even so, we'd like to price our eBooks at a more competitive price--obviously, we'd like to produce as much revenue from this venture as possible. However, many of our retailers and distributors are extremely concerned (and every bit as passionate as many here) about direct-to-consumer competition from publishers. These folks are extremely important to us. Consider: The vast majority of FFG's revenues do not even derive from RPG products, let alone eBook versions of those products. It would be the height of insanity for us, as a company, to jeopardize even one relationship with a retailer or distributor over the pricing of RPG eBooks. We may all believe that eBooks and print products don't compete with each other, but frankly, it isn't our perception that matters here. It's theirs, and we're going to respect that. If that means we sell fewer eBooks than we otherwise would, that's unfortunate for both the company and the customers we might otherwise have gained, but we'll have to live with it. For now.

Thanks much,

Greg
FFG

That said, here's my take. The First Sale doctrine, essentially, allows you to do what you want with the copy of a work you have purchased. It does not entitle you to copy or otherwise reproduce the copy you purchased, and it never has. Quite the contrary, the right of reproduction is one of the core rights--really the core right--that copyright law is meant to protect. The copyright holder may specifically grant you limited or unlimited rights to do so, but any such grant occurs outside the bounds of First Sale doctrine. For example, the publisher of a printed book may grant you permission to photocopy a character sheet, map, player handouts, or some other portion of the work. Likewise, a vendor at DTRPG may grant you permission to copy the work to other devices you own.

Click to expand...

Alright, here's a brain teaser (I hope) concerning the above:

What if I want to download my DRM specifically to a CD. Not store it on a hard drive at all. Store it entirely on a removable form of media. This would allow other hardware to read it whenever it chooses, if you gave me the rights to my single copy purchased onto a CD. But the DRM format doesn't work with this at all to my knowledge. If you want to state that a CD is different than a Hard Disk for all intents and purposes, how so? What is the fundamental difference from me saving the file exclusively to a Compact Disk or DVD?

Consider this tangent about the above as well, what if I purchase the media onto a Hard Drive and used it just like a CD. You still prevent that with a DRM, as I can't use this same uncopied data that I legally obtained (unless I've missed some legal-speak) on my computer and in twelve or thirteen other computers. No, each other computer doesn't need to make a seperate copy, they all use the original. They all have and hold the original document, unchanged, uncopied, but the DRM is still taking away my rights granted by first sale.

Hope I got my legalness right.

Creamsteak said:

What if I want to download my DRM specifically to a CD. Not store it on a hard drive at all. Store it entirely on a removable form of media. This would allow other hardware to read it whenever it chooses, if you gave me the rights to my single copy purchased onto a CD.

Click to expand...

If I am not mistaken, Adobe Acrobat (reader) ALWAYS downloads to the "my ebook" folder on your hard drive, so this may be a moot point.

Also, specific sections of US code do not count "necessary" copying required for functioning as "counting" for the purposes of copyright. What this means beyond that is a topic for a lawyer; I just wanted to point out that it's not as simple as applying traditional copyright law to the computer.

Is that a new adobe acrobat feature with 6.0? I'll have to play around with it and see I guess, but I'm not in the mood to download it yet.

I'm sorry but my legal is not very fluent. What does necessary copying required for functioning (I assume, like when the computer copies data into memory) not counting for purposes of copyright translate too? The best I can get of it is that your saying that since a copy in RAM does not count for the purposes of copyright law... what?

Creamsteak said:

Is that a new adobe acrobat feature with 6.0? I'll have to play around with it and see I guess, but I'm not in the mood to download it yet.

Click to expand...

I take it you have not tried one of the freebie downloads, then.

To download a DRM ebook, Acrobat Reader 6.0 does the downloading.

I'm sorry but my legal is not very fluent. What does necessary copying required for functioning (I assume, like when the computer copies data into memory) not counting for purposes of copyright translate too? The best I can get of it is that your saying that since a copy in RAM does not count for the purposes of copyright law... what?

Click to expand...

Or presumably something like a spooling directory, etc.

An important concern that I would like to see included in this is the fact that there are significant technical difficulties getting the document to work even if the computer has the right software and is connected to the internet.

See the post on www.montecook.com here.

Basically this means that if your computer or network has a high level of security on it, then the document will not open. This will limit most people's access to high quality printers; as will the fact that so many professional printers seem to have a corporate policy of not printing anything protected by DRM. From talking to a few of them, mostly this seems to be because one you activate a computer for an account, there is no way to de-activate it.

I don't know how to word this concern, but I think it would be appropriate to include in the Open Letter.

Thanks

Richard Canning

OK, I've got you. And I'm on dial-up, and rarely have much free-time when I can be online. That's holding me back right now from downloading an update to acrobat and trying out a pdf. I want to, but on this computer it's a chore.

I'm interested in how this whole DRM issue ends up going. I've always fond patent and copyright laws for electronic mediums to be very interesting, and I'm even considering it as an area of study. I wonder how copyright laws are going to need to be changed in relation to the changing way we look at electronic mediums?

I'm not for or against the DRM files, but I have curiousities of the very legality of what they do. I'm not completely certain that restricting the number of computers that can view one file (not copies of the file) is legitimate. I think that their choice is logically reasonable, but perhaps premature? I'd like to know if any of the publishers share these concerns. I want more security in my electronic books, but I think that the DRM may be too confining for a lot of legitimate use. What I'd most expect from adobe is to make the DRMs have more options for publishers selecting what kinds of security and features to apply to their documents.

RCanning said:

Basically this means that if your computer or network has a high level of security on it, then the document will not open.

Click to expand...

IIRC, Adobe connects on ports 80 and uh...443 (I think). All you have to do is go into your firewall and open port 443 (80 will already be open, its the port your browser uses to browse the internet).

Now, this is easier to do at home than work (obviously). But, what are you doing d-loading PDFs/Ebooks at work? You should be working!!!!

o.K., my question:

On his boards, Monte Cook said he was looking into a "lend" feature that would allow the DRM-PDFs to be accessed from a non-registered computer for a short time. Is such a thing technically feasible, and have other publishers thought about such a feature?