Why DON'T you pirate?

[Jeff Wilder]

Except that, of course, we can't ever know what effect PDF piracy has on actual print copies being sold.

Why do you think that's releveant to whather it's theft? (It's relevant to damages, not to whether or not there was a crime or tort.)

If you go in my desk and remove the pen in there that used to write in green ink (and now doesn't write at all), it doesn't matter whether or not your taking of the pen affected me. It doesn't even matter if I notice. You've still stolen from me.

If you hack into my bank account and transfer 10,000 dollars of the 9,800,000 that's in there -- pardon me, I'm fantasizing -- it doesn't matter whether your transfer affected me. It doesn't even matter if I notice. You've still stolen from me.

Look, if you and others want to argue that the taking of intellectual property should not be considered theft, go for it. If you want to commit theft because that's your philosophy and you consider it a form of civil disobedience, fine. I would imagine you'll gain some traction.

But this ridiculous self-serving attempt to deny that taking IP is theft, well, that's just ... sad. And, of course, incorrect. And, perhaps worse, denying the facts is actually counter-productive to the intellectual property regime -- legal and corporate -- that (I assume) you'd rather witness become reality.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

In my end of the world Intellectual Property is not a subset of property. (I realized that you said "IP rights" and "property rights", so maybe you do agree that IP is not a subset of property.) It has its own set of laws completely.

Please quote Sweden's property statutes and intellectual property statutes, because while they may bear different designations, I'd be willing to bet that they are substantially identical (with almost all of the differences being due to the intangible nature of intellectual property).

I can certainly see how this can blind you in this discussion.

Ah, yes, the old "your superior legal education and work experience has blinded you" trick.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Except that, of course, we can't ever know what effect PDF piracy has on actual print copies being sold.

There have been statistical sales analysis done of the areas around physical sites that have high-speed internet access- universities, businesses, etc.- that show a decline in sales of IP (most clearly in sales of music & movies) in those areas after the high-speed internet access became available.

Deprive the owner Permanently of the :

3. Benefit: This is the strongest case to be made however to make it you need to show that they were harmed in some manner. The benefit they hope to incur is obviously profit from the sale of the PDFs.

The benefit lost is the sale lost. You're getting full access and use of the product without payment. You may feel the need to buy a copy down the road, but in the meantime, you've gotten full enjoyment of the product- the IP owner has gotten nothing.

So then the questions are : (and I have yet to see good answers for any of these)
A: Would the people that downloaded free illegal PDFs had ever spent the money on the legal ones ?

Immaterial. If I steal a car and then buy a car, I've still stolen a car.

B: Did the downloads of illegal PDFs negatively impact PDF or Hardcopy sales ?

By both legal and economic definition they do, and RW statistical analysis backs this up.

C: Did the downloads of illegal PDFs positively impact hardcopy sales (yes even I won't try to argue that it would have increased legal PDF sales) ?

Again, immaterial. If I choose to market my product (of whatever kind) in a sealed black box that you can't look into and say you have a choice of buying or not buying it at $ price, you don't have the right to take the product, try it out, and then decide to buy it. You've unilaterally decided to violate the terms by which I placed the product into the market.

If, OTOH, I am more amiable and give out samples, you're perfectly free to try it out and buy or not buy, and there is no violation.

D: Did any positive impact to hardcopy sales (either via browsing of a pdf then hard copy purchase, or exposure of the hobby as a whole) outweigh any negative impact ?

See above.

E: What has this whole issue and the handling thereof done to community of hobbyists both in regard to how we see ourselves and WOTC and how the outside world views WOTC and the hobby/hobbyists ?

Its hard to gauge, but I see a LOT of "split personalities."

I kid you not- I've had people at my table complain about how the computer game they produced is being pirated more than they're selling...and 2 hours later ask another guy at the table to burn them a copy of someone else's game.

I guess not many people get taught lessons about "enlightened self-interest"/Ethics of Reciprocity/Kant's Universality principle/The Golden Rule.

Seeing as how your source also state it has to be done "permanently" are you saying you would be okay with PDFs that were unauthorized but self deleted after say 99 years ? They wouldn't be permanent.

"Permanent" is as much a term of art as a "life sentence": all it really means is a significantly long stretch of time.

By law, the intent to commit theft occurs at the moment of exercising control- in the case of piracy, that would be the moment you pressed the combination of keys that initiated the download.

Determining whether the downloader in fact intended to "permanently deprive" the property owner of his property rights is a matter for a trier of fact (depending on the situation, a judge or jury).

I'm a Texas attorney, licensed since 1996, working primarily in Entertainment law. IP is what I do.

I can certainly see how this can blind you in this discussion.

LOL!

No, the USA isn't the sole sovereign state with laws regarding IP...but it is the major force behind most of the IP treaties that have come down over the past 60 years. While there are some minor regional variations, the treaty signatories are actually pretty uniform in their protections.

The real holes develop when countries choose not to enforce IP laws they have or treaties to which they're signatories. China, for instance, is notorious for not honoring IP claims from foreign entities.

China is also currently trying to figure out how to control the pirates they're sheltering from Western IP holders who also happen to be scorching the bottom line of Chinese IP holders...

 

[Zimri]

Why do you think that's releveant to whather it's theft? (It's relevant to damages, not to whether or not there was a crime or tort.)

Najo implied that it mattered because of lack of support for the industry or some such I was refuting that claim with that statement. and well most of that post.

If you go in my desk and remove the pen in there that used to write in green ink (and now doesn't write at all), it doesn't matter whether or not your taking of the pen affected me. It doesn't even matter if I notice. You've still stolen from me.

If you hack into my bank account and transfer 10,000 dollars of the 9,800,000 that's in there -- pardon me, I'm fantasizing -- it doesn't matter whether your transfer affected me. It doesn't even matter if I notice. You've still stolen from me.

Yes a hundred times yes in each of those cases I have taken something from you. You no longer possess or control it and I do. Heck in both cases the "permanency" qualification is met as well because well the pen doesn't work and I have deprived you of the interest you would have earned for the time I had the money were I to put it back.

Theft is any of the following acts done with the intent to deprive the owner permanently of the possession, use, or benefit of his property

Deprive the owner Permanently of the :

1. Possession: Nope wotc still has possession of exactly as many as they had possession of before. If I uploaded a virus to WOTC that deleted theirs after I made my copy then they would no longer have possession

2. Use: No they can still do everything with it they used to be able to. If I had it redacted, made it non transmissible, or corrupted it so it couldn't be opened then they could claim that they could no longer use it.

3. Benefit: This is the strongest case to be made however to make it you need to show that they were harmed in some manner. The benefit they hope to incur is obviously profit from the sale of the PDFs. So then the questions are : (and I have yet to see good answers for any of these)

A: Would the people that downloaded free illegal PDFs had ever spent the money on the legal ones ?

B: Did the downloads of illegal PDFs negatively impact PDF or Hardcopy sales ?

C: Did the downloads of illegal PDFs positively impact hardcopy sales (yes even I won't try to argue that it would have increased legal PDF sales) ?

D: Did any positive impact to hardcopy sales (either via browsing of a pdf then hard copy purchase, or exposure of the hobby as a whole) outweigh any negative impact ?

E: What has this whole issue and the handling thereof done to community of hobbyists both in regard to how we see ourselves and WOTC and how the outside world views WOTC and the hobby/hobbyists ?

Points A through E become relevant because they deal with loss of benefit (ie profit if more is gained then lost then was there a loss of benefit ?).

But again apparently (and I thank the lawyer for pointing this out) Permanency is an issue so I am guessing that so long as the PDFs could be made to self erase in 99 years that would make them non permanent and thus not covered. Of course any PDFs I have legal or otherwise would have long since expired of "natural" causes (computer upgrades or hard drive wipes, cd/dvd scratches etcetera) within that time anyway.


As to the rest of your post I won't comment as I find it insulting and derogatory.

 

[Zimri]

There have been statistical sales analysis done of the areas around physical sites that have high-speed internet access- universities, businesses, etc.- that show a decline in sales of IP (most clearly in sales of music & movies) in those areas after the high-speed internet access became available.


The benefit lost is the sale lost. You're getting full access and use of the product without payment. You may feel the need to buy a copy down the road, but in the meantime, you've gotten full enjoyment of the product- the IP owner has gotten nothing.

Except that we can't prove a sale of anything has been lost. In fact according to how most people on enworld (a fairly decent sample I would say) Did not, and would not pirate. I take them at their word on this as I find no reason not to. The people that did download the PDFs likely never would have bought a PDF from wotc. And hardcopy provides (in my opinion at any rate) much more usability than gaming at a table with 6 laptops.

The IP owner has also lost nothing. they still have as many widgets as they had prior, I didn't cause them to become non transferable or unusable, or cause them to go away. They can still sell to those that want to buy from them. Which again looking at the numbers here is as reasonably close to everyone in your market as you are likely to get.

Immaterial. If I steal a car and then buy a car, I've still stolen a car.

Yes if you steal my car, and I can no longer use it I am of course denied the use and benefit of said car. If you make a copy of my car but leave my car there I am not denied it's use or the benefits of said car.

By both legal and economic definition they do, and RW statistical analysis backs this up.

My anecdotal evidence says otherwise and well quite frankly I trust what I have experienced more than I trust what you have experienced.

"Permanent" is as much a term of art as a "life sentence": all it really means is a significantly long stretch of time.

No permanent is a real word with a real definition if the law means something else the law darn well better say something else.

By law, the intent to commit theft occurs at the moment of exercising control

Then why are joy riding and grand theft auto two different crimes with different penalties ?

Determining whether the downloader in fact intended to "permanently deprive" the property owner of his property rights is a matter for a trier of fact (depending on the situation, a judge or jury).

Yes yes it is and this discussion is just for fun. I am not going to change your mind (and that was never my intent) and you aren't going to change mine.

I get where you and WOTC are coming from. And I understand why you as an IP lawyer have seeing things one way ingrained into you. I also see bands that thrive because people download songs for free THEN go to concerts and by CDs, DVDs, and memorabilia because they liked what they saw/heard. Heck every month I plop down 24 dollars to see an act I could watch a week later for free on youtube put there by the performers. I also know for a fact that in my circle MORE books get bought after we see what we would be getting because lugging around laptops is anathema to our gaming table, but hey we wouldn't have bought PDFs any way unless they were very inexpensive.

We may have to stop talking about pirates now seeing as how the US military is currently involved with pirates off the coast of Africa... Wouldn't want to break the politics rule.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Arguments about whether it is theft or not stop now.

There have been so many arguments about it in the past, which evidently haven't been conclusive.

Anything posted after this warning in the thread is liable for summary deletion.

Stick to discussing the original topic.

Thanks

 

[Breschau of Livonia]

To be honest, the main reason I don't pirate is simple, boring ethics. When I was a poor college student I had a little pirated software and tried all sorts of ways to justify it to myself but I never believed myself...

Another big reason is as a software engineer, I'm in an industry vulnerable to piracy. My ability to support my family is largely dependent on people paying for something that could be stolen fairly easily.

That said I wholly object to the strategy of treating your paying customers as potential, if not likely, criminals.

I talk about this a bit more in my blog It’s Talk About Pirates Day « Publius the Geek’s Blog

 

[Calico_Jack73]

I'm inclined to believe the research that suggests that people typically pirate things that they wouldn't buy under normal circumstances. If they like the product enough, most people will purchase it... if they like it but not enough to pay for it then they'll pirate it. I think it is especially true of the RPG community. Most of us are all too willing to throw down money for a dead tree format book. I do believe that the publishers ought to include a code in their in-print books that allows purchasers to download a free copy of the book they bought in print. I'm not crazy about paying for BOTH an eBook and the same in-print book.

Personally I don't pirate for two reasons. The first is that it is theft, a crime, and I am not a criminal. The second reason is that my job requires me to take a polygraph every so often and I like to go in with a clear consience.

 

[I'm A Banana]

.

Now, following the law is a moral issue. If a law isn't inherently immoral (citing examples may irritate the mods... but imagine a law that says you have to commit patricide or something) and the law is promulgated by a legitimate authority (i.e. not revolutionaries or warlords, etc.) then we're morally bound to follow it even if it's a stupid law.

It's the old Augustine-Aquinas-MLK thing: an unjust (i.e. inherently immoral) law is not a law. But if something's an actual law then I'm afraid we're just stuck with it (unless there's a legitimate apparatus for getting it changed... in which case by all means).

If the legitimate civil authority says no unauthorized downloading then that's the way it has to be. I use the roads, I am protected by the military and I benefit in all these countless ways from being an American citizen. So in exchange, I have to avoid breaking the (relatively lax!) rules.

I think it's fair.

I like this idea, but I keep seeing parallels to prohibition rather than Civil Rights. File trading is probably, morally speaking, on par with drinking alcohol. This is, to my mind, more about the state (and several industries) ignoring the need for change, turning huge swaths of the population into criminals. Most files traded are like bathtub hooch sold out of speakeasies.

Which makes this, in my mind, more of a civil thing than a moral thing. Any law that causes a huge percentage of the population to be outlaws is probably a bad law, in need of change to mirror the way society actually behaves rather than how entrenched industries would like it to behave. Rather than using the law to change people, I'd like to see people changing the law.

Yes, I drank before I was 21. Yes, I usually go about 5 MPH above the speed limit. Yes, I have partaken of illegal drugs. Personally, I don't think this makes me inherently immoral as a person, or even much of a poor citizen. IP laws have deeper roots and more ramifications, and what might someday replace them hasn't emerged yet, but in the next 50 or so years, I'd say that the idea that you can make a tidy profit selling copies is going to become an antiquated idea, by and large. Whether this is overall something positive or negative, it's hard to say. I'm probably not a huge fan of replacing the movie industry with YouTube, but I'm not about to go insane with the idea that file trading must be stopped, either. It's speeding and underage drinking and marajuana and pornography. It might not be especially GOOD, but it isn't going away, and you won't be able to legislate it out of existence. I don't really think any of those things are inherently immoral either (speeding probably comes the closest, as it has actual risk to human life involved in it).

Your best bet, usually, is to trump the pirates on convenience and reliability of your own products: deliver what people want in an easy and timely fashion and at a good price. Which is why the DDI Compendium is a genius idea, and that making it better will only reduce the pirating. Which is also why selling PDFs for $30 and removing the sale of PDFs isn't going to curb the thing much.

You can probably make a profit this way, but whether or not you can make increasing profit, year after year, that meets bean-counter expectations...that's probably sketchier, because Six Sigma doesn't account for cultural sea change in its management strategies.

 

[Oldtimer]

<insulting rant>

Jeff, I will back out of this discussion now. You are just being hostile and insulting and we are not getting anywhere. I'm sorry if you felt singled out - I just quoted our post as an example - no need to start a war over that.

In twenty or thirty years, when IP laws are just a distant and weird memory, none of this debating will matter anyway.