Update: Malhavoc PDFs no longer available at RPGnow (merged)

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

There are three types of use affected by DRM schemes. The first is unrestricted personal use, and it is affected negatively by any DRM. Even Apple's iTunes, which is fairly easy to legitimately work around, still makes working with your property harder than it needs to be. This impacts the non-technical user the most, since they are least able to find ways to bypass the DRM, and are far more likely to experience technical issues (system crashes, etc) that cause problems dealing with DRM'd files.

The second is mass distribution of electronic content. DRM does absolutely nothing to prevent this, since it is a trivial matter to bypass the DRM for a technically savvy individual, and it only needs to be done once and then uploaded to a P2P system.

The third is casual copying among friends. A DM buys a .pdf file and shares it with his gaming group, for example. DRM will prevent this for the non-technical people who are unable to bypass the DRM or download a cracked copy off of a P2P network. This makes it a pain, and less useful than a print copy, where you could at least loan it out. Those who can pirate it, or bypass the DRM, are not affected at all.

One has to assume that those making the decision to employ DRM for these products understand all that. They have to know they are not going to stop the people who will bypass the DRM or download the file from a P2P network. The only rational explanation is that they are going after the casual copier that either can't or won't download a cracked file. They aren't going after the whole-sale pirates, they are trying to recoup some imaginary lost sale -- the second or third hardcopy sale in a gaming group that they think they are losing due to electronic distribution.

The problem is that, for 99% of the products, there is no second or third sale within a group. Outside of the core rules, how many gaming groups buy multiple copies of anything? This is the same fallacious thinking that the RIAA/MPAA use -- that 1 pirated copy = 1 lost sale.

Some publishers see electronic distribution as a threat rather than an opportunity. They view it as cannabalizing sales from print products rather than selling a product to someone who wouldn't have bought the print product in any event. So, in pursuit of hardcopy sales they wouldn't have made in the first place, they risk alienating the individual users of their products, they risk losing sales of alternative products because some percentage of folks won't buy DRM'd files, and they stop the ready availability of their product on the P2P networks for 24 hours if they are lucky.

And a couple of things for those of you who see the current DRM implementation as no big deal. First, you've surrendered your right to loan your product to your friends, a right you've long enjoyed with your print product. Second, all of these DRM implementations are changeable at the whim of the owner -- and the owner is no longer 'you'. Just as they could retroactively remove the 10 c&p limit, they could retroactively disable c&p altogether, limit the number of copies that can be printed, etc.

 

[Numion]

But at the same time, the people who pirate this stuff in the first place are already criminals, and they aren't going to give two flips about the legality of it.

Some are. My country, for example, has a lenient copyright law. Making a few copies of copyrighted material for me, my family and my associates (people I personally know) is perfectly legal under fair use. The law doesn't even say I have to own the original.

So don't be so quick to call anyone criminal.

About the copyright protection: it may well prevent average joe from copy-pasting too much of his bought PDF, but it only needs to be broken by one person. Then the genie is out of the bottle and the cracked version will end up in P2P networks. It's not like car security - it's more like welding the doors shut for the ordinary carowner, while the thief has a skeleton key for all cars, all the time.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

There are some interesting similarities between Software Piracy and Theft.

Most people today lock their rooms or houses. Why? Because they fear theft.
But locks aren`t for free, and it is always a hassle to open a lock (especially for the occasions where you aren`t in ... perfect shape - like after a long party. Not the kind of problem I have, but some do ), and sometimes you lose your keys, and you will have to get a professional to open the door. (Possibly damaging the lock, but at least having to pay the professional).
Some people even go further and get house alert systems. They are even more complicated to use (you have to remember and enter a code number, sometimes within a given time frame.)
Similar systems are found on bikes, cars or suit cases.
And all of these systems can be hacked.

See, we all go long ways to avoid theft.

The main difference between this and software piracy and its counter measure, Digital Rights Management, is: The protection against the software pirate is not for ourselves, it is for a company we have no other connection to as that we buy its products.
I guess that is the main psychological difference, and the reason why many hate the DRM.
We might want to answer if there is also a philosopical difference?
Maybe there is. We are all free to not lock up or bikes, cars or house, if we think it`s not worth it. And we have the right to do it, because its ours.
But unfortuantely, this doesn`t apply for software or e-books. It is not ours in the sense of a bike that is ours. We have the right to use it, but the "idea" behind it, the "Intellectual Property", is not ours.
Well, this can go on for a while... (Like: I can lend my bike to someone else if I don`t need it at the time, but it is still my property. But am I allowed to "lend" a software product to someone else, since I currently don`t use it? Unlike the bike, I am still able to use it. And I am sure the bike producers would favor if everybody bought its own bike and we would not lend our bikes to other people)

Finally, I think the main idea of DRM is not so bad. Be it a software company or an author, they have the right to get some money from the investments they took to create their product.
But probably the execution is still quite poor.
(Another "philosophical" question: Should it be the duty of a software company or the author to sell me a product I can use without problems? I believe, current license agreements say otherwise in most cases, but shouldn`t there be some kind of "minimum usability guarantee"?)

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[The Mad Kaiser]

Most people today lock their rooms or houses. Why? Because they fear theft.
But locks aren`t for free, and it is always a hassle to open a lock (especially for the occasions where you aren`t in ... perfect shape - like after a long party. Not the kind of problem I have, but some do ), and sometimes you lose your keys, and you will have to get a professional to open the door. (Possibly damaging the lock, but at least having to pay the professional).
Some people even go further and get house alert systems. They are even more complicated to use (you have to remember and enter a code number, sometimes within a given time frame.)
Similar systems are found on bikes, cars or suit cases.
And all of these systems can be hacked.

See, we all go long ways to avoid theft.

Your argument is flawed.

Yes, you lock your house. Very good.

Now sell your house.

Do you keep the key?

Do you tell the new owners what they can and cannot do with their new house?

Do you tell them what kind of people can visit their new house?

Do you tell them how many times a day they can use a feature of the house, like the turlet or the fridge?

Do you insist that their house be conected to your webcam before they can use it?

If you did, you would be an A$$, and if anyone was stupid enough to agree to these things, yikes.

Go ahead and let these publishers screw you. Just know this: people that support companies that screw them are stupid.

 

[Sir Whiskers]

The main difference between this and software piracy and its counter measure, Digital Rights Management, is: The protection against the software pirate is not for ourselves, it is for a company we have no other connection to as that we buy its products.

This is a very important point. Ask anyone who's tried to initiate significant changes in a company and they'll tell you the number one reason such initiatives fail is resistance from the average employee, not management. To convince the typical employee to embrace changes, you have to make it worth their while.

You want the entire Accounting department to use your new, nifty, super-duper software? It better make their jobs easier, faster. It better give them extra functionality they didn't have before and that they want. In short, you need for them to have a stake in its success.

DRM doesn't do this. Monte makes an interesting argument, with some vailidity. Without DRM, some companies will never, ever make their print products available as electronic downloads. Whether or not that is a rational decision isn't important - it's the way some companies act. So having DRM provides a single benefit: legal availability.

Is this single benefit sufficient to encourage the average customer to embrace DRM? Not really. Some will accept it, many won't. As others have pointed out, the hassles of DRM can be minor or catastrophic, depending on the user and circumstances, but it's still a hassle. The rules of ownership are fundamentally changed under DRM, in which the publisher retains significant power to limit use of its product after purchase. Most of all, there is the (IMO, accurate) perception that DRM's sole purpose is to benefit the publisher, not the consumer.

In business terms, this strikes me as a terribly flawed model. I personally still don't understand the case for companies to use DRM. It alienates paying customers and does little or nothing to stop the thieves. IMO, if a company is so concerned with piracy they won't e-publish without DRM, they shouldn't be e-publishing with it. The case doesn't add up.

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Just a quick note: some of the posts here have gotten way, way out of hand. This is an interesting discussion and I for one am enjoying it, even the posts I personally disagree with. Please keep the discussion civil. Let's avoid impugning the motives of anyone: publisher, gamer, poster. Let's stop the insults and name-calling. Being respectful of others is most important when discussing such topics as this. Thanks.

 

[wocky]

Install a Postscript printer driver on your PC, and set it to print to a file.

In Acrobat Reader, print the pdf to this printer. This creates a (sometimes humongous) PS file. The 7.1Mb Exalted pdf turned into a 110Mb PS file when I tried this.

Copy the PS file to the machine without DRM on it. With USB flash drives these days having a capacity of 256Mb or more, this shouldn't be too hard.

Install something like Ghostscript and GSview (www.ghostscript.com) on this machine if you want to view or print the PS file. If you actually have a Postscript printer connected on this machine, you could also copy the file directly to the printer from the command line.

You can use Ghostscript and GSView to convert the .ps file to PDF (just choose the "Convert" option from the File menu and choose PDFWriter as output). This new PDF shouldn't have any copy protection.

When installing a Postscript printer I recommend you use the HP Color Laserjet 5.

An alternative is to use CutePDF, which should make all the task easier.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Okay, this thread has so many statements in it that are just wrong that it is, well, rather amazing. Last time I checked the sky wasn't falling (although it is raining pretty hard here).
I am not going to start debating people's entrenched opinions but I do want to say one thing. NONE of the people publishing under the SSS/WW "umbrella" are obligated to release pdfs through "DTRPG." It is an option that these publishers were given. I sincerely doubt that Monte was a special case with WW "thugs" showed up at his house and twisting his arm. Hey, I could be wrong, but I rather doubt it.

Is this an official statement that all people publishing under WW were free to choose? I know you have written for several of these companies but are you able to make such an official statement? I have seen posts from Monte here and from WW over at RPG.net and this issue was never answered by either. Forgive me for not believing you but the circumstantial evidence seems say otherwise. I would be much happier to see Steve or Monte clarify this point.

WW does not own "DTRPG" although some of the same people do own and manage it. The fact that it is a separate corporate entity has a lot of business meaning that appears to be completely lost here, especially based on comments like the one below.

As they were my comments I will defend them. I will agree that they are separate corporate organizations. But I will disagree that because they are separate corporate entities that this some how makes them behave counter to the best interests of the other when the same people are in charge of both. The shell companies that Enron set up to hide its debt were legally separate corporate entities but I suspect that most people would agree that they were in fact wholly controlled by Enron. Just because something is legally distinct doesn't mean that it is not in fact controlled by someone else.

The vitriol in many of the posts here is rather impressive. I can't forsee publishers wanting to wade through 12 pages of "the sky is falling" and "the evil empire is coming" posts. Some people have wondered why publishers haven't come to this thread to answer "questions." I see few questions, just vitriol and personal attacks aimed at the "evil" publishers, or the "evil" DTRPG, or the "evil" adobe/DRM, etc.

No I can see your point that they wouldn't want to wade through 12 pages of people complaining about their business choices. However it probably would be in their best interest to anyway, because it is hard to run a successful business if you can't find support in a public discussion about your product. Even the supporters are saying that the product has problems but that the problems aren't as bad as others think. WW and DTRPG have a PR nightmare on their hands right now and running away and pretending it doesn't exist will not solve the problem.

 

[francisca]

The vitriol in many of the posts here is rather impressive. I can't forsee publishers wanting to wade through 12 pages of "the sky is falling" and "the evil empire is coming" posts. Some people have wondered why publishers haven't come to this thread to answer "questions." I see few questions, just vitriol and personal attacks aimed at the "evil" publishers, or the "evil" DTRPG, or the "evil" adobe/DRM, etc.

Your short sightedness is impressive. Clearly you eat your own dogfood though, because if you had waded through the 12 pages, I think you would have seen some valid concerns, in addition to the chicken little treatment.

Welcome to the new economy. These people you are belittling are also among the most likely to buy your products in electronic form.

 

[BSF]

Don't most poeple just print PDFs straight away, which is perfectly possible with the protected files?

Absolutely not. I keep the files on a computer. I have many of my PDF's on a CD in my bag at work if I have some down time and want to work on stuff. Since I do network and system administration, there are times when I am at work simply waiting for people to finish up and go home so I can do maintenance/upgrades. Long hours in the middle of the night and I might want to work on gaming stuff to keep me distracted for a while.

It hasn't increased at all for me so far. I completely disagree with that. The registration you have to do via Adobe is voluntary, in order to obtain a product to buy. TO compare that to being stopped and demanded to show your papers is quite an exaggeration.

Heh - I am also the one that tweaks all the SPAM filters at work. I can almost always tell when somebody in the company has registered new software because of the sudden increase in UCE. Adobe and Microsoft are both guilty of contributing to this, though to their credit it is often just notifications of their products instead of widespread sale of their mailing list. It has made me very cynical in regards to the value of registering products.

All sorts of sites on the internet demand you register to use the site, such as many newspaper sites. I find it irritating too, but it's becoming a reality.

This is true. By and large, I do not frequent those sites either.

 

[derverdammte]

If you don't like crippled PDFs, crack them.

Fixed for me.