See, that's a great example of my 5th point then. You don't think its copyrightable, but I think that since copyright doesn't always function on single phrases taken in isolation, the collection of ranger power names, in context, might be.
Man, once I get my law degree in intellectual property, this discussion will be a lot easier.
Cadfan said:
I think it might be more akin to being allowed to eat one marshmallow now, or being allowed to eat one marshmallow later, while being told that there's no real rule that says you have to wait if you don't want to, and you can go ahead and eat the marshmallow now or later as you see fit, but really your Mom is going to be very disappointed in you if you didn't figure out that secretly everyone wanted you to wait. I'm not a fan of bait and switch.
Understandable. But I don't see anyone telling you that you're going to be
shamed into buying EP. My main point is that it would be smart of you to contribute to the thing that brings you joy if you want it to bring you more joy. I'm not making a moral case as much as I am an "enlightened self-interest" kind of case. If you just want to get the game, my disappointment won't come about because secretly everyone wants you to pay, but because if you contribute something, things will be better.
I'm not exactly sure about Shem's "cool" comment, but that wasn't even raised before your first post, which already seemed kind of on the defensive about it.
You don't need to be defensive, you just need to realize that there's an externalized cost to this free pdf that you might not be paying. You might pay it indirectly in the form of "no new EP supplements" at some point in the future. You might not -- your sale might not matter to them if they can get enough people who like the game talking about it. If you run a game with 4 other people, and two of them buy the book because they love it, you've made them two sales by giving away one book, and I'm sure they'd be happy with that arrangement.
There's no shame in grabbing apples from a tree that offers them, but if you don't take care of that tree or plant more seeds, you've got an externalized cost that results in you not getting any more apples.
You can do those things with a free copy. And a simple fansite policy would have accomplished encouraging these things just as easily, without the obvious and rather large side effect of offering me a free copy of their book.
Yeah, but I think offering people who wanted free copies of the book was part of the plan all along. It certainly wasn't an unintended side-effect. The theory generally goes that if you hit the largest market available (which free helps you do), some portion of that market will want to pay for the good stuff. Even if it's only 5% of your market, if the market is big enough, that can be quite a take-home. And for a small publisher, I'm sure they don't need that huge of a market or that big of a percentage to take home a tidy profit.
I don't think this is a "side effect."
That doesn't mean that you should just take a free copy and run, though. It's better
for you if you contribute something back, because then you'll keep getting stuff back. If you're interested enough to find and download it, you're probably interested enough to (for instance) publish your "Cadfan's Eclipse Phase House Rules Document" in a PDF on ENWorld's Non-D&D discussion boards, no? From the former, you get a game, from the latter, you get
more game.
You don't have to, but why wouldn't you want to?
But when something is explicitly and intentionally made available to me for free, I don't have a problem taking it. I figure that whoever made that choice knew what they were doing.
It sounds like what you really want is a patronage system. If that's really what Posthuman wants, they should just post their entire ruleset online, sell hardcopies for those who want them, and put up a paypal donation box.
They haven't done that.
No, you're misaprehending the argument. I'm sure they knew exactly what they were doing, and are totally fine with you getting a free copy. I don't particularly mind it, either. I don't want everyone to pay to own the book if they really want the book, but can't spare the dough.
I want you to think about the ramifications of your actions, though.
I want you to know that if you give nothing back, you're potentially hurting yourself in the long run.
If you're comfortable with that, then
that's your cost. You've paid for it by taking the risk of having less cool stuff in the future, hoping that enough other people will pay for it to support your non-purchase. You've essentially socialized your purchase, redistributing the cost amongst everyone who DID buy a copy. In a way, Shem and Clueless and everyone else at GenCon who got a copy, bought you your copy.
(This is the same way going DDI-only works, too. Though you pay a monthly fee, content is derived from the published books, so those who buy the publish books subsidies your database access to a large degree. Your $10 might pay for the guy they hired to program it and the interns that enter data, and might not show a profit for a few years.)
If you're not comfortable with that scenario -- and, seeing how defensive you were before anyone said anything about what you should or should not do, and how you keep acting like you're being guilt-tripped into a purchase back-door-style, evidence may suggest that you're not entirely comfortable with that -- then give something back. Take the time to rip your house rules to PDF and tack on the CC stuff. Maybe keep a story hour (I would be very interested to hear how this game plays at the table, for one!). CC publish what quests you send the PC's on, or their character sheets. Maybe even buy a copy.
But the decision isn't that of Posthuman, or of me, or of anyone who bought the book.
The only person who can decide what they want to contribute to the game is
you.
You don't have to, but I don't think I fully understand why you wouldn't want to.
JohnRTroy said:
It sounds like KM is thinking of optimistically (CC is the future, commercial projects are "old hat"),
I'm not
quite so utopian, though I do tend to think that the current copyright system in a lot of the world has outlived its original intent of encouraging new artwork, and that CC goes a long way toward helping that, while still providing a reason for an informed and educated consumer to actually purchase the product itself. It's use in a game book is interesting since a lot of a game book's text is, by the nature of the book, not protected. I think what EP has done here that is noteworthy is create a transhumanist
setting that is basically free to use and re-use as long as you tell everyone where you got it from.
EP seems to be a very literary game, which can lead to some very interesting stories in their world.