Anyone else find this really irritating?

Elfcrusher said:

Yes, I've acknowledged it several times by comparing it to typing in your music note by note. Yet you think this is a valid comparison or good solution?

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No I do not think it is comparable to typing in a song note by note. For many reasons, including that a song can not reproduced just with the notes, but a book can be reproduced with a bunch of letters. But, lets please not go down that debate. Besides, its not nearly so hard to do as what you are implying. In the FG world their are various parsing applications that can do 90% of the work for you. But, it's a valid solution, whether you think it's a good solution or not is another matter (which you state below you do not.)

What? Where did I say it's morally objectionable? I said it's a business decision that doesn't give me what I want, and it drives people to unauthorized sources, and they end up missing out on potential revenue. (Maybe they've done their analysis and concluded that getting a ton of money from fewer D&DB users has a higher net than less revenue from more users.)

In the absence of a sanctioned version, the only justification I need for using unauthorized digital versions is Fair Use doctrine. The circumstances may not be entirely legal, but it is 100% ethical. You yourself agree that if I were to type all that stuff in, I would be free to use it electronically. How exactly does letting somebody else type it in for me change that? Sure, the guy typing it in may be violating copyright, but I'm not. And, again, I'm not paying him for it.

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(Edit: note, you just admitted above that their is a legal sanctioned version...)
Well, according to your moral code that you don't like the legal solutions provided is justification enough for you to use illegally distributed content. But not to my, and many, ethical codes. You know that the content is being illegally distributed, and you chose to use it anyway. How is that different than knowing your friend stole the car but your going to borrow it any? Use of stolen goods when you know they are stolen is not ethical by any ethical standard that I would chose to accept/adopt.

Oh I know, you are going to say you (and your friend) are not preventing the WotC et al from actually using their content, you have just made a copy of it, unlike the car example. You're going to claim that no harm is being done to the copyright holder.

Maybe, just maybe you are right, but now you are the criminal determining if your actions are doing harm. Something already pointed out as not being consistent with most legal/moral/ethical systems.

Maybe the confusion here is that you think I've been saying they (WotC) have made an immoral decision? Not at all.

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No, the confusion was only from your obtuse statement that I quoted and implied the disconnect still existed.

LordEntrails said:

No I do not think it is comparable to typing in a song note by note. For many reasons, including that a song can not reproduced just with the notes, but a book can be reproduced with a bunch of letters. But, lets please not go down that debate. Besides, its not nearly so hard to do as what you are implying. In the FG world their are various parsing applications that can do 90% of the work for you. But, it's a valid solution, whether you think it's a good solution or not is another matter (which you state below you do not.)

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Wait a second...you are saying that it's not only entirely feasible that I type all the stuff in myself, but also that it's ok to do so. But that it's a terrible, unethical thing if I use a version that somebody else typed in, just because they weren't supposed to do that?

What's the difference? EDIT: I don't mean legally, I mean ethically.

(Unless I'm mistaken, it would be free to use D&DBeyond if I typed it in myself, although perhaps without some features that are reserved for subscribers, so that either way there's no additional revenue for D&DBeyond or WotC. Is that correct?)

ANOTHER EDIT:
Maybe you are conflating personal principles with ethics? Anti-piracy is clearly very important to you, and so you have a strict code you live by, which is noble, and it sounds like you think others should live by that code, too.

For a while my wife and I avoided buying any products from China because that country was the largest importer of elephant products, with the government turning a blind eye. It often/usually meant we had to buy more expensive products. That was our principle, even though we knew in reality it wouldn't have an impact. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Sure, we would have loved for other people to take up our boycott, but we didn't think it was unethical of those who didn't: those people just didn't share our personal principles. I can totally understand that saving money is more important to some people than taking a righteous (but ineffective) stand against elephant poaching.

Ooh, and one more juicy detail: despite all that, my wife has a wallet made of elephant skin. We bought it directly from anti-poaching rangers in Botswana. It was made from the carcass of a poached elephant, and the funds help support anti-poaching efforts. But there are many, many people who share our love of elephants whose personal principles wouldn't permit them to buy or own any elephant products. Just because. And that's fine.

What's not fine is then insisting that others do the same thing.

Elfcrusher said:

Wait a second...you are saying that it's not only entirely feasible that I type all the stuff in myself, but also that it's ok to do so. But that it's a terrible, unethical thing if I use a version that somebody else typed in, just because they weren't supposed to do that?

What's the difference? EDIT: I don't mean legally, I mean ethically.

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I do believe using something that is distributed illegally, and unethically per my views, as unethical. You feel it is ethical to use something that you know and acknowledge has an illegal aspect, I don't.

There are many examples I could equate this too, but I don't think their is value in continuing the discussion do you? I mean if I used extreme example like slave labor, forced prostitution, etc, I don't see you considering them applicable to the discussion. If I used examples of the harm done to independent creators, you dismiss those too.

You have stated your views, I have stated mine. I don't think their is any uncertainty in those views is there?

LordEntrails said:

If I used examples of the harm done to independent creators, you dismiss those too.

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Which examples? Did I miss that, or misunderstand?

Look, I don't deny that some copyright violations harm the creators. But some violations don't do harm. And some even help. Proscribing them all without considering the details is, well, zealotry.

You have stated your views, I have stated mine. I don't think their is any uncertainty in those views is there?

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Probably not. Good luck with your crusade.

[MENTION=6804070]LordEntrails[/MENTION]
[MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION]

I sort of lost track in this thread who was arguing which side of this, but basically it is legal for the owner of the product to make a backup or an alternate format of the product. That means you, personally, have to make it for it to be legal. As soon as anyone does this and then shares it with other people, even for free, then copyright laws, etc are being violated. You also need to keep ownership of the original for your copies to stay legal. For example, you can't just buy a DVD or CD or something, make a copy of it, and then sell or give away the original without making your copy illegal to own, in the US at least.

Enevhar Aldarion said:

[MENTION=6804070]LordEntrails[/MENTION]
[MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION]

I sort of lost track in this thread who was arguing which side of this, but basically it is legal for the owner of the product to make a backup or an alternate format of the product. That means you, personally, have to make it for it to be legal. As soon as anyone does this and then shares it with other people, even for free, then copyright laws, etc are being violated. You also need to keep ownership of the original for your copies to stay legal. For example, you can't just buy a DVD or CD or something, make a copy of it, and then sell or give away the original without making your copy illegal to own, in the US at least.

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We aren't disagreeing about this. But thanks.

Enevhar Aldarion said:

I sort of lost track in this thread who was arguing which side of this, but basically it is legal for the owner of the product to make a backup or an alternate format of the product. That means you, personally, have to make it for it to be legal. As soon as anyone does this and then shares it with other people, even for free, then copyright laws, etc are being violated. You also need to keep ownership of the original for your copies to stay legal. For example, you can't just buy a DVD or CD or something, make a copy of it, and then sell or give away the original without making your copy illegal to own, in the US at least.

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The disagreement is that Elf thinks it is ethical to use material that is being illegally distributed if he legally owns it in a different format, I do not.

LordEntrails said:

The disagreement is that Elf thinks it is ethical to use material that is being illegally distributed if he legally owns it in a different format, I do not.

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can be ethical

It seems to be irresistibly tempting to misrepresent my position as an absolute.

P.S. I'm entertained that I was criticized for jumping to wild conclusions for associating repeated use of words like "theft" as a likely indicator of zealotry. I pretty much called it. Where there's smoke...etc.

Scary said:

Google sheets!! An electronic spell list, easily filtered for whichever class you are playing. Basically your spell book once you print it out

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Would have been REAL helpful in 1981!!

doctorbadwolf said:

Oh well, the point is, DDB doesn’t require you to purchase things you already own. It just requires you to pay if you want DDB to unlock that content for you, without you having to input it manually, and doesnt allow you to share copyrighted material via the homebrew system.

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Just for clarification purposes, if I acquire DDB, I can input Xanathar's spells manually but I cannot share it with my players? How do they control the latter? Keywords?