Does piracy offer anything good? (aside from the bad)

[lestat2099]

I live in a country where the flow of the 4e books is actually non-existant. You can find a few copies on ebay Mexico and even though the copies in spanish do exist, they're not imported by anoyne. The support just isn't there.

So When I heard about the game where did I go? Torrents...

I didn't wanted to pay lots of money for the shipping of 3 books that maybe could've been crap, and the price of legal PDFs was absurd.

Now I do have lots of physical books (like half of the books but just one adventure) and I have all of the PDFs available in the pirate market. This files helped me decide wether to buy or not a book, for example Draconomicon, Manual of the Planes or Dungeon Delve are books that I will never buy, but without the PDFs maybe I would've regret my purchase. Instead I save my money for the books I know I want.

And when I get my hands on the Arcane Power PDF, I will decide wether to buy the book or not...

 

[JoeGKushner]

Piracy of out of print materials that is not legally available in PDF form doesn't really seem like piracy to me. If people want to play older editions of material that's not available and isn't being sold in any format, the 'harm' coming to the original company is all in it's own mind. By failing to provide the material or by failing to bring those fans to the new material, they have lost whatever sales they could have made.

In some instances, the new company may not even be the original company that produced the product in the first place. The 'harm' done by this illegal pirating of OOP would seem even less.

 

[wedgeski]

Piracy of out of print materials that is not legally available in PDF form doesn't really seem like piracy to me. If people want to play older editions of material that's not available and isn't being sold in any format, the 'harm' coming to the original company is all in it's own mind. By failing to provide the material or by failing to bring those fans to the new material, they have lost whatever sales they could have made.

I find it hard to disagree with this in principle, but the more qualifiers you add to your definition of what you're pirating, the less convincing the argument. You *can* get out of print materials, legally, on the second-hand market. I have a shelf-full.

That you can't get them on PDF *specifically* seems like an overly convenient justification for not doing "the right thing" to me. From there it's a small hop to: I can't buy a PDF without DRM... pirate. I can't buy a PDF with a decent index... pirate. I can't buy a PDF with bookmarks... pirate. While you could certainly argue that the rights-holder should supply what the market needs, you're not entitled to these things just because he isn't selling you what you want.

Not to mention it's also an argument you could trot out every time some new digital format arrives on the scene that the rights holder isn't actively supporting.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I find it hard to disagree with this in principle, but the more qualifiers you add to your definition of what you're pirating, the less convincing the argument. You *can* get out of print materials, legally, on the second-hand market. I have a shelf-full.

That you can't get them on PDF *specifically* seems like an overly convenient justification for not doing "the right thing" to me. From there it's a small hop to: I can't buy a PDF without DRM... pirate. I can't buy a PDF with a decent index... pirate. I can't buy a PDF with bookmarks... pirate. While you could certainly argue that the rights-holder should supply what the market needs, you're not entitled to these things just because he isn't selling you what you want.

Not to mention it's also an argument you could trot out every time some new digital format arrives on the scene that the rights holder isn't actively supporting.

I can agree with what you're saying. The lure of convience is strong though, especially if a company is essentially just squating on the material in fear that it's being stolden. Which it is. But it is going to be wither they squat on it or not.

For another example, ever try to buy Cowboy Bebop soundtracks in America? No MP3s legally available at any of the places I shop (iTunes, eMusic, and Amazon) and I haven't illegally downloaded them and have found one CD used at a price I thought reasonable.

The makers of that music could have my money directly instead of second hand if they bothered to market it.

WoTC could bother to have the money it they made it available.

You can't put the genie back in the bottle. iTunes has been laughing all the way to the bank while others try to figure this out.

 

[El Mahdi]

... You *can* get out of print materials, legally, on the second-hand market. I have a shelf-full. ...

Except, legal sales of out of print materials is profit only for retailers, not for the holder of the IP. Piracy laws are only there to protect the IP holder, not the retailer (well, retailers may enjoy an indirect benefit). If the IP holder is no longer actively making money off of the IP, I don't see a problem downloading digital copies of out of print material, whether the law says it's wrong or not. Technically, it's only wrong if the IP holder takes issue with it.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Piracy may increase physical book sales. However, it seems hard to argue that it increases PDF sales. Unless the pirated copy is of such poor quality that buying the pdf offers a better product, how often would a pirated pdf lead to the sale of a pdf? It might lead to the sale of other pdfs, but only if those pdfs were either (a) better quality than the pirated ones or (b) easier to download (faster download speed/easier to find).

The quality issue probably does not come up since the high quality pdfs would just end up getting pirated (which happened with PHB2). ddi is the other part of the equation too. It's possible that, without WOTC creating high quality pdfs that are pirated soon after their release, the quality and/or time before the pirated copy is released and/or ease of finding these pirated copies will go down, and thus make ddi a more appealing option as an alternative to pirating (it takes a week, but you get instant access in arguably amore useful format). The pdfs you pay for vs. the same pdf you can get to free wasn't a very good competition ... ddi vs. pirated from scanned books, a bit of a better fight.

In general, a pdf book for most people is going to supplement a hard copy (I downloaded a purchased copy of Song of Ice and Fire in order to build a character, since our group has at least one hard copy to use in play) either from the group, or for themselves. I also have ddi, which means that I use books at the table, while I don't need them during character creation.

So, in general, I think the 'pdf-only' market is probably a small enough sub section that piracy is unlikely to have an effect on hardcover sales ... and generally pdfs (sold or pirated) would be competing with ddi for sales. And since ddi is harder to pirate (well, the non-pdf parts of it), that's the one they have decided to keep, while eliminating he pdfs means they aren't helping the pirates or competing with themselves.

 

[Kaisoku]

All true. Those numbers are unequivocal, by the way, straight from Stardock based on the fact that every instance of the game run in the vicinity of a live internet connection pings the game servers.

I guess in this case those numbers are painful because they're not just casual hoarders, the sort of people who click on a torrent for the sake of having it, but instead these are folks who have downloaded, installed, and run the game. It is fair to say that you've probably eliminated some portion (I don't know how many) of those who would 'not have bought the game anyway' in the process.

And from a corporate perspective, I don't think any CEO (let alone a share-holder) has the perspective to look at numbers like that and think of it as anything but net lost sales.

It's all about what info you have, and the perspective you look at it. People are always pirating your game.. lots of people. Even at it's peak, the numbers were ~6:1 ratio.

Now consider this:

1. The game didn't have a Demo. So if someone wanted to try out the game before buying it, they had to pirate it or play it on a friend's computer (which is tough on release day, especially if you are really interested).

2. The ratio of pirating users vs ~6:1. Considering that's EVERYONE other than those that outright buy games without trying them first, it's not really surprising a number.
I can't imagine those numbers are worse than even games that require being cracked.

3. The singleplayer game updates the moment it's turned on. This makes a connection to the server, which is counted. A pirate who downloaded the game that wanted to simply see if it's a working copy of the game would be counted as "a playing user".


The CEO of Stardock knows their games get pirated. I'm actually betting they looked at those numbers (with the above caveats in mind) and figured "Hey, we have a lot of interest in our game, awesome!" Remember, multiplayer isn't playable via pirated game.

Consider also that they didn't slap on DRM to fix this issue, and instead just refocused their techonology so that legitimate users could play multiplayer without being disrupted.

A company that takes a stance of not putting in DRM for their games (rather, give reasons to have a legitimate copy) is going into it expecting piracy.
The only hype over the situation was that they weren't prepared for the "early release" from retail stores, the numbers connecting to the server approaching the peak load of the entire Steam community instantly at day 1, and it's subsequent disruption for legitimate players.

When put in this light, the actual number of pirates vs legitimate users doesn't seem as significant, nor do I expect anyone over at Stardock crying over the numbers, either.



Personally, however, I feel that pirating from a company that specifically tries to be as customer focused as they are is a special kind of low.
It's like robbing a soup kitchen after they fed you. It just doesn't sit right with me...

 

[portermj]

Except, legal sales of out of print materials is profit only for retailers, not for the holder of the IP. Piracy laws are only there to protect the IP holder, not the retailer (well, retailers may enjoy an indirect benefit). If the IP holder is no longer actively making money off of the IP, I don't see a problem downloading digital copies of out of print material, whether the law says it's wrong or not. Technically, it's only wrong if the IP holder takes issue with it.

Actually, sales of out of print materials can create interest in reprints. Downlifted copies depress that interest.

A creator shouldn't have to worry about making money on a particular property at any given time. Think about the comic book industry. For most of its history old issues of most comics weren't generating income for the companies. They got their income from publishing and licensing, with the odd reprint to cover missed printer deadlines. Now trade paperbacks are a major part of the industry. TP's ability to prop up the industry wouldn't have been possible if widespread theft of the contents of back issues by bootleggers was an acceptable practice.

WOTC has reprinted material from earlier editions so they do make use of old IP. It may, at some point, start to reprint old products or sell pdfs of the products. Downlifting illegal pdfs of those products reduces the chance that those products will be legimately offered because every bootleg copy is a lost sale of a future legitimate copy of that item.

Personally, I have serious doubts that piracy makes the game more accessable. Someone with the income to buy a computer and pay for internet service can pay for a new book, they can read reviews of any new book, they can probably thumb through a new product at a book store or hobby shop. They can certainly plunk down a few bucks at a used book store for old TSR products.

As for the abilty to preview a product before buying it, I have serious doubts that every downlifter deletes stolen pdfs when they decide they aren't going to buy the book or pdf. It's like the episode of the Boondocks where Grandpa complains that movies are terrible, the food is overpriced, that tickets are too expensive, but it never occurs to him to just not go to movies.

Downlifters want to be exempt from supporting creative endovers. They just want to pay for the 10% of the really good stuff while still experience the other 90%. They want the rest of us to provide the support that makes any medium (video games, movies, books, music, tv shows) large enough and diverse enough to give creators enough space to create really great art.

 

[Bombshelter13]

Annecdotal Evidence

As anecdotal evidence, within the past two months, there have been two games which, within a week after acquiring a handful of PDFs by means that won't be described in detail and being very pleased with their contents, I have gone to the companies websites and placed large orders. The first company, whose games I have never had the opportunity to play locally and whose products are completely unavailable for browsing in my FLGS, received an order for 200$ worth of product. The second company, whose products are similarly difficult to find here, has received an order for about 250$ worth of product. Two other games, discovered in a similar manner, are on my shopping list for my next paycheck, and both these companies can expect orders of similar size.

I would have never been able to discover anything useful about these games through my FLGS, and am now enough of a fan of the product lines I've discovered in this somewhat shady manner that I expect to be ordering new books for them the moment they become available for preorder.

 

[El Mahdi]

WOTC has reprinted material from earlier editions so they do make use of old IP.

Ummm, when exactly was that? Name one time in the last 10 or 15 years, where WotC reprinted prior edition material at the same time they were printing and marketing a new edition. (And redo's of previous edition material converted into a new edition are not reprints.)

Actually, sales of out of print materials can create interest in reprints. Downlifted copies depress that interest. ...

The first part of that is a valid point, except for the fact that we are talking about WotC. No amount of interest in out of print (read: previous editions) books is going to get WotC to re-print anything. They've gone as far as to say almost exactly that.

So, for a company that actually applies a certain amount of reason to their decisions: Yeah, your point could very well hold true. But for WotC, not a chance.

Also, I tend to think that an increase in pirated copies actually highlights consumer/fan interest in those products. Seems like a valid and reasoned assumption to me. Certainly a much better assumption than what seems to be WotC's current "we're being robbed, better throw out the baby with the bathwater" mentality. I would think that if your stuff sucks, and nobody's interested in it, noboby's going to pirate it. I would posit the opposite is also probably true.

Personally, I have serious doubts that piracy makes the game more accessable. Someone with the income to buy a computer and pay for internet service can pay for a new book, they can read reviews of any new book, they can probably thumb through a new product at a book store or hobby shop. They can certainly plunk down a few bucks at a used book store for old TSR products.

As for the abilty to preview a product before buying it, I have serious doubts that every downlifter deletes stolen pdfs when they decide they aren't going to buy the book or pdf. It's like the episode of the Boondocks where Grandpa complains that movies are terrible, the food is overpriced, that tickets are too expensive, but it never occurs to him to just not go to movies. ...

Yes, someone with the income to buy a computer "can" do everything you mentioned, but most people, much like electrical current, will take the path of least resistance. I'm pretty sure lazyness is a far cry from malicious intent. More and more, people do their shopping online rather than actually go to a store. Why would it seem so strange that people would also "browse" online? And reading a review will never be a substitute for reading something yourself. There's absolutely no way to know that a reviewers tastes are the same as yours unless you actually read and compare yourself.

If there's an out of print book that I want (if I don't already have it), and I can actually find it available somewhere, I have absolutely no problem plunking down a few bucks (and I do, along with many other people). Of course though, now that the pdf's are gone that isn't possible anymore (or at least much, much harder to legally accomplish this). Hmmm.

And just because someone actually deletes the pdf or not, doesn't change the fact that the intention of some is simply to preview. Not deleting a pdf that never gets used anyways, hurts absolutely nobody except to waste memory space on the downloaders computer.

Downlifters want to be exempt from supporting creative endovers. They just want to pay for the 10% of the really good stuff while still experience the other 90%. They want the rest of us to provide the support that makes any medium (video games, movies, books, music, tv shows) large enough and diverse enough to give creators enough space to create really great art.

Correct that to "Some downlifters want to be exempt ..." and that statement would be correct. Without the "Some", it's just a blanket declaration, based on an assumption, of what every downloader intends. As far as I know, no living person (save maybe one) has ever posessed such omniscience.




This all kind of reminds me of an occurance when I was stationed in England, where logic similiar to WotC's current mentality was applied. Our tool crib was replacing all of our handtools with new, laser etched Snap-On tools. All of the old tools had been removed and placed in to our reclamation bins to recycle them for the metal. Problem was that some of the old tools were growing legs and walking off from the bins. As a result, I overheard our tool crib NCOIC tell his people to throw them out in the trash. His exact words were "hurry up and throw that stuff* away before somebody steals them". As a result, denying the Air Force 100% of the money from the reclamation rather than lose a small amount of money through the depredations of a few. WotC recent decisions concerning piracy remind of that same insane logic. (He also could have just found a better way to secure them. But I guess that made too much sense.)


*censored ... also, a 100% a true story. (and not a tacit approval of theft)