Arcane Power: How long before the pirated copy appears

[Xris Robin]

You also don't have to cut it. Having checked the scans (to uh, see if they were legit, of course), you can see where the page bends because of the spine.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

There was a joke copy going around, and almost everyone except you later seems to have verified it didn't look like it was the real thing.

So you are saying that Arcane Powers =/= Pakastani Midget Porn?

 

[baphomet68]

Have you (or "a friend of yours") actually downloaded the file? There were some fakes floating around. I'm not sure why anyone would want to foist bad pr0n on gamers but that seems to happen quite a lot.

The full PDF became available today on public DL networks. Chapters 1-4 took (About) 4 days to show up, with chapter 5 showing up on day 5-6. While I have heard of fakes being available, they were taken down b4 I spotted 'em. I heard that the whole book was available on private networks on this and other forums, but that was off topic - a tiny circle, not mass piracy. So, my guess was way short. I look forward to seeing WOTC's resonse to the lag.

 

[Kask]

Someone mentioned that you need to cut up the book. Wrong. I have a high end scanner at work that with a touch of the book button, auto corrects for the curvature. Can't even tell you were scanning a book. It also does excellent OCR at the same time. I have made excellent PDFs out of my still intact books. 2 hours was the longest it took me. The machine costs several thousand dollars though.

 

[Bumbles]

I wonder if it would be kosher for someone to post a picture (a screen capture, perhaps) of the so-called pirated book, just to put this issue to a rest?

I would, but sadly the pirate crew accidentally shot the books with a cannon.

Bunch of scurvy dogs.

Why couldn't they hit the copies of James Patterson's latest?

 

[ferratus]

Arcane Power is indeed up on the mass torrent sites today.

So I guess the moral of the story is that if you want an electronic version of the book, but want to get it as soon as possible, you're just as well to get a DDI subscription.

 

[baphomet68]

Wishful thinking. A casual search and I found it the day the print version was released. And I don't even really know what I'm doing.

I am pretty sure someone already tended to this, but: while the words "Arcane Power" or "4E Arcane Power" certainly were to be found on certain squirrely torrent sites, these were not actual listings: they were constructed by the text of your search. I think there has been a lot of confusion between folks who could find the words "Arcane Power" and folks who have actually seen a downloaded copy. I saw with my own eyes the "Peicemeal Pirating" releases.
Or are you claiming to have actually seen a DL'd PDF on release day? So far, I have seen many claims that people saw something listed; no claims of actually having seen the release day PDF DL.

 

[Oompa]

I can confirm that Arcane Power is available on the broad torrent sites..

The book is scanned completely, bookmarked, page synced, the quality is not as the other PDF's but everything is complete (no border cuts), and it has copyable text.

Although quality is not high, this shall improve in time..

Guess stopping PDF sales only slowed the pirates and by no means even tried to stop them..

 

[lutecius]

Originally Posted by Mistwell
Have you (or "a friend of yours") actually downloaded the file? There were some fakes floating around. I'm not sure why anyone would want to foist bad pr0n on gamers but that seems to happen quite a lot.

The full PDF became available today on public DL networks. Chapters 1-4 took (About) 4 days to show up, with chapter 5 showing up on day 5-6.

er... I know that. I actually announced the full book was available on p2p in the same post. But i think you got your quotes mixed up.

Or are you claiming to have actually seen a DL'd PDF on release day? So far, I have seen many claims that people saw something listed; no claims of actually having seen the release day PDF DL.

Hence my question to JRRNeiklot in the post you attributed to Mistwell

The book is scanned completely, bookmarked, page synced, the quality is not as the other PDF's but everything is complete (no border cuts), and it has copyable text.

Although quality is not high, this shall improve in time..

In the version I saw, the last chapter wasn't OCRed but the pics were pretty good, some even better than in earlier scans.

 

[Bumbles]

Guess stopping PDF sales only slowed the pirates and by no means even tried to stop them..

OTOH, Wizards now knows that they aren't making it easy for them by providing the PDFs ripe for harvesting. Which is probably what was the most bothersome part of it for them.

As I see it, they aren't losing anything by cutting off PDF sales. If there's any benefit from such piracy, or even if it's simply no net-loss (IOW, Piracy doesn't hurt Wizards sales), then they are fine. The only thing they lose is what, a bit of revenue from online sales that won't be made up in other purchases, or even a subscription to DDI? Maybe some from the people who are so indignant about them choosing not to sell on PDF that they boycott WoTC?

How much money is that? Well, I don't think any of us know. It might be possible to find something telling us how much they made from PDFs in Hasbro's filings, but those won't come out for a while. Do any of the major online retailers of PDFs report their sales figures, and do we have any idea what cut Wizards got of it?