Att: WotC - Replacing PDF's

[mach1.9pants]

Yeah. I sometimes think the only really effective anti-piracy measure would be to make it worth Google's while to not show torrent sites in its search results. Obviously WotC couldn't do this, but movie studios and record labels could.

Now that is an idea...

+++rushes off with a letter to RIAA and buys stocks in Google+++

 

[Jack99]

I would expect nothing from WOTC on this, for a couple of reasons:

1) Their move did *nothing* to prevent PDFs of their products from showing up on various pirate sites. Copies still appear, but they're scanned instead of purchased PDFs, and take a few days longer to appear -- but that's been the only effect of their cunning plan.

2) The lawsuit they filed against the folks who had distributed pirated copies of PHB2 was able to be brought because they were able to identify those users through existing security methods. In other words, watermarking and steganography WORKED, and provided the needed info to the publisher. So to turn around and claim that they were pulling PDFs to "combat piracy" was... an odd choice, to put it kindly.


You're looking at a lawyer-derived policy, made by folks with a) little connection to the products themselves and b) even less connection to the community.

It won't change, and you won't see any true alternatives. What you will see is something completely different, with none of the same functionality, touted as a valid replacement.

I love the positivity that you put forth when discussing these things. While we are here and talking PDF, have you as a 3PP noticed a change in sales after WotC withdrew the PDF's?

 

[Jack99]

Now that Scott's flyfishing vacation is over, perhaps he will have time for an answer.

 

[coyote6]

Yeah. I sometimes think the only really effective anti-piracy measure would be to make it worth Google's while to not show torrent sites in its search results. Obviously WotC couldn't do this, but movie studios and record labels could.

I don't think that would work, because then Bing or Yahoo or some new search company would start that wouldn't exclude torrent results. They'd get to market themselves as "providing honest search engine results, without having to worry about what someone else has paid to keep you from seeing" or the like (after all, if the MPAA or RIAA can pay Google to exclude results, then why can't Corporation X pay Google to exclude results from their competition?).

Pirates would simply use the other search engine, and Google would risk losing marketshare overall (as people migrate to the "better/more complete" results). The RIAA & MPAA would have to bribe every search engine company, which would get really expensive (especially once someone posted a decent search library as open source software, and everyone started a search engine site just to get some of that MPAA/RIAA money).

AFAIK, Stanford still has computer science degree programs; Messrs. Brin & Page can be replaced. Cheaper & easier for the MPAA & RIAA to spend their money on legislators.

 

[Aeolius]

Perhaps WotC could take a look at what CourseSmart, a publisher of educational e-Books, is doing HERE

 

[Krensky]

Perhaps WotC could take a look at what CourseSmart, a publisher of educational e-Books, is doing HERE

You mean DRMed subscriptions? How does that solve the issue?

 

[Drkfathr1]

Bump!

 

[Jack99]

According to Twitter notes, PDF's will make a comeback. Or what? These are the two quotes I got on my phone:

PDFs: working on that, but no announcements yet.

There will be pdfs again but no details yet.

I would love to know what exactly was said - or maybe Scott could confirm anything?

 

[Zulithe]

If they bring them back (And I really, really hope they do) I hope they go the paizo route and offer them at a reduced price. Even a 10-15% reduction would be nice.

 

[Mexal]

While I'd purchased all the 4e materials as PDF rather than dead tree up to the time they pulled them, the real loss is the archival material, particularly the old TSR stuff (AD&D) - they have been so long out of print that finding physical copies is hard and expensive.

Even if they choose to only release 4e in dead tree, could they PLEASE consider the earlier editions as suitable candidates for PDF. Bet they won't though. My archive is just about complete, and staying firmly tucked away on the RPG hard drive here... but what about everyone else who hasn't got them all yet?