Morpheus and DnD

[RangerWickett]

Yes, it'd be nice if there were an easy way to enforce 'sampling' without intruding in people's privacy. Perhaps read-only files that self-delete after a day and can't be copied, but I wouldn't know how those would work.

Again, I think it'd be nice if more companies tried to cater to the obvious desire people have to work digitally. I'd like to be able to go to some official website, select my 10 favorite Led Zeppelin songs, and pay $2.50 to download them as mp3s. People don't want to spend $15 for CDs anymore, but $5 is a little more reasonable, especially if you could be picky in your purchases, getting single tracks instead of the whole album (though the album would be at a discount).

You can never really stop digital piracy. Even if files self-delete and can't be copied, someone could create a program that reads the file and rips it. But it is possible to make people feel less inclined to try to steal. Low-quality streaming music or video could let people sample purchases, and companies could let you buy and download items cheaply online. It saves them distribution fees, packaging fees, etc, and would make a lot of fans happy.

Is there any move being made in this direction?

 

[rounser]

can't be copied

A bit on the impossible side for most media, I think. If you can hear music, it can be copied. If you can read text, it can be copied. If you can watch a film, it can be copied. The only exception I can think of offhand is perhaps a computer program, because what we see isn't what needs to be copied in that case.

The best companies can do is make copying less convenient, which is what they're trying to do now.

 

[Berandor]

However, being human, and being fallible, if you were presented with a choice between working and paying for something, or acquiring something that wasn't yours that you knew had no punishments or repercussions for, which one would you take? If you could, say, steal a car from the Auto-mart lot, and knew beyond certainty that there were NO physical, legal, or spiritual repercussions for the action, WOULD YOU DO IT?
[/i]

Absolutely not.

Sorry, but I still would feel bad about it.
Conscience, you know? And I've come to know how dependant an artist is on sales figures, especially when having a share in sold copies.

And, yes, I know I am probably far in the minority, most of my friends poke fun at my "lawful goodness", and I'm fighting an uphill battle (and probably losing ground).

Re: Communism
Communism is a great idea, and it looks really viable on paper. However, it is not compatible with human behaviour, and thinking.
It starts with the notion that you can't pay all workers equally, no matter what they do, and ends with competeing with your neighbor for the more beautiful garden...

Berandor

 

[Brother Laszlo]

Here's something to think about: piracy has been around a long time, and publishers know how to deal with it: they factor it into their price. They manipulate the price, taking supply, demand, overhead, marketing, risk, whatever, and come out with a price that will most likely earn the most profit. So every CD you buy and movie you watch, you're paying for the existence of piracy.

Conclusion? You might as well get what you pay for.

Of course, the more piracy we endulge in, the more prices will rise, causing more piracy. But if that worries you, you might as well trade your car for a bike and never have kids as well.

 

[reapersaurus]

after reading many posts on many threads on this topic on these boards particularly, maybe someone can enlighten me as to why there are so many vocal detractors of the filesharing movement, whereas all i see in real life are people who think it's the best thing since sliced bread.

 

[TalonComics]

I can honestly say that I've never downloaded a copied version of a gaming book illegally. That just seems, I dunno, pointless.

I take my books practically everywhere I go via a backpack. The last thing I would want to do is print out thousands of pages of those books. I would much rather have the actual books than some lousy facsimile.

I can't imagine that the percentage is very high of people who actually download that stuff and print it out. If I knew anyone who actually did that my response to them would be: You're a dumb ass. Just buy the book.

Then again, I do sell the things...

~Derek

 

[RangerWickett]

Well, I've actually had something digitally published now, and so it's in the forefront of my mind that I don't want people pirating my product.

Also, in everyday life, you talk about the recording industry, or the movie industry, which is rather faceless, huge, and makes lots of money, so we generally don't feel it weighing on our consciences as much if we deprive them of some profits. But on these boards, we can personally talk to people who are directly hurt by file-copying. I won't say that Morpheus caused last weeks lay-offs at WotC, but people are encouraged to think more clearly about who exactly they might be harming if they choose to use pdfs instead of paying for products.

If all you do is download them for sampling purposes, I feel not the least ill-will toward you. But the same programs you might use for harmless perusal and sampling, others use for digital piracy. We restrict people from buying assault rifles. Even though most people wouldn't go on killing sprees or attack police stations, some people would, so the rest of us must put up with the mild inconvenience of not being able to have a cool-looking gun.

For piracy, it's worse, since we know from experience that most people don't just sample kindly and legally. If they can pirate, in general they will. Thus, there is even more reason why file-copying programs need some clear legal ruling.

 

[spinjammer]

Something I find curious is the "the companies rip me off, and I don't care if they lose money" stance. A lot of people seem to think that companies are large abstract entities, that exist outside their (the people's) own system and their (the company's) only effect on society as a whole is to rip off customers and make money. While the latter is certainly true with a lot of companies (lawyer firms anyone? ), they are still part of our society. And they provide work for you and me. The company consists of people. So who is gonna suffer if a company loses? The company? Not really. As a company is not a person (real person) it can't suffer. The losers are the employees. And guess what, they are people like you and me. So for all people out there who think they are hurting a big bad business monster: you don't - you only hurt people and in a more subtile way, yourself.

It's still hard to draw a clear line. My personal line is this: when I am doing something, that I am not really sure about (affecting society), I ask myself what would happen if everybody does it. Normally that makes my mind up. (This logic does not always win out, however.)

But brighten up lads, until now, society survived despite of thieves, pirates and big bad monster businesses.

Spinjammer

 

[poilbrun]

Point to ponder: If the above statements are truth, then why are some of the largest Warez sights coming from Former USSR and and Chinese-based servers?[/i]

The reason has nothing to do with communism in itself, rather with the fact that those countries were late in their coming to the "digital world", which means they began making laws a lot later than the United States. As such, there are still many holes in the laws of many countries (including in my country, Belgium), and I believe that's the case in former USSR and China. Remember when the internet really spread? Around 95 (at least, here in Europe). I think at that time, the russian government had much more important things to do than try to protect the copyrights of strangers... All that will change, given due time. China has entered the WTO and must now abide to the international rules about copyright and intellectual property.

To come back to the debate at hand, I truly believe that internet piracy for books is a lot less important that the common piracy that happens everyday and is seen as normal : if you go to a friend's or to a bookstore, take a look at a book, and then use even only one idea of the book without buying it, you're doing as much harm to the publisher than someone who downloads the pdf from Morpheus. This doesn't mean that d/l the pdf is right, but the effect to the company is not as hard as it may seem.

Anyway, my point seems to have been seen and accepted : I only have pdf for the books I own (I don't even use pdf to preview to work!), which is permitted by law (at least in my country : if it is permitted to have a song ripped as a MP3, I don't see why it wouldn't be permitted to have a book as a pdf) long as I do not give it away (which I do not).

 

[Tsyr]

I'm sorry, but theft is not capitalism. Theft is more akin to communism... getting things you didn't nessisarily work for. (And no, typing "DnD books" or something into morpheus is not "work".)