wedgeski said:
Whether we as consumers like it or not, piracy is the bogey-man of most industries which depend on copyright to make money. Solid DRM might actually *encourage* the bigger players to participate in the further growth of the PDF industry. I suggest everyone stops whining about it. And the first person that says they will rip-off a Malhavoc product to 'teach them a lesson' can go and stick their head in a furnace because no-one (I hope) will be fooled by their bull.
This is the most completely misunderstood aspect of copyright. Copyright is not now, nor has it ever been to allow someone to make money, or even in the broader sense to protect authors' work from those who would steal it - copyright has always been solely about encouraging innovation and new creation, as per the Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 8) " ...to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts."
Additionally, copyright violation was always a
civil offense rather than a criminal one. Now, thanks to the efforts of BSA, RIAA, et al. to have the government do their bidding by lobbying and getting the NET act and the DMCA turned into laws, copyright violation is a criminal act.
Also, the term "piracy" is a misnomer - according to international law, piracy can only occur on the high seas...
While I agree that people should be able to be paid for their efforts, the fact of the matter is that it is far better to figure in the costs of copyright violation as a matter of doing business rather than spend time and money agonizing over it in a never-ending battle. Retail operations already book the fact that they'll have a rough percentage of loss due to theft - many retail stores don't even prosecute shoplifters unless they are also employees because it costs more than just writing off the loss when they do their taxes. If someone wants to break DRM badly enough, it will happen no matter how much money and time is invested otherwise. It has happened every time it occurs. More importantly, publishers will never keep up with the pirates, who have the advantage of more time, more desire, and, in most cases, much more intelligence than the people who devise DRM or any type of copy protection. Just take a lesson from the German military - for every code invented, there will almost always be a code breaker, given enough time, effort and brains to figure it out. Fact is, most of the companies that offer some type of DRM are charlatans - every single DRM implementation has only been implemented by breaking the product it is protecting - whether that is a password/serial, a dongle, encryption, or a watermark.
Also hard to get a grip around is the idea that "copying" is somehow theft - legal theory aside, if I leave you with the original, how can it be theft? How is downloading a copy off of the internet any different than photocopying a paper version from the library or giving your friend a tape of an album, other than ease of use? The argument that this represents a lost sale is fallacious because, debate aside, common-sense dictates that it represents someone who will never have purchased a copy or who will end up buying a legitimate copy.
Generally, people really don't want to be told how and when they can use something they just spent their hard-earned money on. How would it feel to be told "you can't wear that shirt with those pants" (wives notwithstanding)? How about "you can only drive your car twice a week and you have to use Getty gas"?
Bottom line - make a quality product that people can use any way they want and they will buy it. I freely admit that I've gotten pdfs of many rpg titles off of the net - but I also own a paper version of every one of them. The paper versions have good "hand feel," but when I'm not at home and need a quick rules lookup or want to print out disposable map copies, I use the pdf.
I do not support piracy in any form, just to make that clear. I think this is going to hurt your sales somewhat. Semms to me in the using DRM, everyone is now considered a perviced thief.
