Piracy

[Fenes]

Keep the flames to yourself. The law is the law. You can argue all you want about the justness of such a law, but it's clear that legally you are in the wrong. The PDF was obtained and distributed illegally. Simply because you own the hard copy you are not suddenly absolved of committing a crime. That's like arguing that just because you have your driver's license at home, the cop should let you go.

Morals are different from laws.

If I am required to carry my license with me when I drive - which is the case - then the cop will fine me. Should the law state that I am just required to own a license, then I'll not be fined.

Fortunately, judges in my country would laugh at you for trying to call downloading a copy if I am allowed to make a copy myself a crime. If I can make copies for private use, then it doesn't matter if I make the copies myself, or if someone makes the copies for me, as long as it is not distributed to others who are not allowed to make or own copies.

 

[Mercutio01]

Fortunately, judges in my country would laugh at you for trying to call downloading a copy if I am allowed to make a copy myself a crime. If I can make copies for private use, then it doesn't matter if I make the copies myself, or if someone makes the copies for me, as long as it is not distributed to others who are not allowed to make or own copies.

Funny, since the Berne Convention most certainly applies to Switzerland (if I can assume you are there based on your location) and that explicitly provides that copyright law from the country where copyright is claimed shall apply to any signatory. Since WotC claims copyright in the US, and US copyright law supports what I've said, and since Switzerland is indeed a signatory (they wrote it), then US copyright law with regard to WotC books most definitely does apply in your country. The judges may laugh and dismiss the case, but the laws of your country still support what I've laid out here.

 

[Krensky]

I would like to note that it would be nice if when you purchased a book, you got a key to download a PDF of that book. A lot of DVD's now come with a version to view on iPods and some CDs I've bought have included links to download free mp3s of the songs. It's nice because then I don't have to rip the songs myself. Indeed, I am considering distributing a PDF with my chapbook. I'll package the book with a CD which will include a PDF version of the book and audio files of the poems being read.

Baen does that semi-regularly with their Baen CD, including a bunch of formats of the book in question, along with art, back catalog, articles, and sometimes other things like an audiobook or screensaver.

 

[Asmor]

The distribution in the first place is definitely not legal, and in particular in many cases it is not moral. In fact, due to the nature of torrents, anyone who downloads from a torrent is guilty not only of procuring a pirated PDF, but of helping to distribute it.

That said, I feel entitled to a digital copy of the book. I believe that someone should only have to buy something once and then should be able to use it however they want. In my mind, if you own an old 8-track tape, you're completely justified in downloading all the tracks from that tape illegally, even if there are cheap and legal alternatives, because you already purchased the content once. If you've got a movie on VHS or Beta or Laserdisk, then go ahead and download that too.

It is content that matters to me, not format, and I think that's the heart of the disagreement here.

Once you purchase some form of media, I believe you are entitled to use that media in any way, shape or form you want (limited to personal use, of course). Further, since it is not practical for the media distributors to provide every piece of media in every format someone might want it all for one price, I believe you are entitled to procure that media in the format of your choice by any means necessary. Further, since the infrastructure of piracy already exists, I believe that it is morally acceptable to use that infrastructure to get media to which you are entitled.

And this will be the case until every book, movie, game and album I purchase comes with a perpetual license and supporting infrastructure allowing me to download the media for free, whenever I want, as many times as I want, in any format I want, to any device I want.

 

[Imban]

The poll is doubly meaningless because the only people who could say that the did pirate it would be someone who boarded a cargo ship in the middle of the sea and stole them.

You know how Dungeon Delve was delayed? Yeah, that stuff about the cover material was just a cover story...

 

[Echohawk]

That said, I feel entitled to a digital copy of the book. I believe that someone should only have to buy something once and then should be able to use it however they want. In my mind, if you own an old 8-track tape, you're completely justified in downloading all the tracks from that tape illegally, even if there are cheap and legal alternatives, because you already purchased the content once. If you've got a movie on VHS or Beta or Laserdisk, then go ahead and download that too.

It is content that matters to me, not format, and I think that's the heart of the disagreement here.

But surely there are significant additional benefits to having a book in a digital rather than printed format? Don't those additional benefits make a PDF different to a book, even if the content is the same?

For example:

• I can quickly search for something in a PDF. I cannot do that in a book.
• I can easily copy and paste sections of text into my own game notes from a PDF. I cannot do that using a book.
• PDFs weigh a lot less, which makes them easier to transport than books.
• PDFs are not subject to wear and tear, and remain in the same condition no matter how often you use them.

It seems clear to me that owning a digital copy of a book provides a number of additional benefits that you would not have simply by virtue of owning a printed copy. Those are benefits that you have not paid for as part of your book purchase. So why should you be automatically entitled to those benefits without paying for them?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

That said, a law telling you not to copy IP is not immoral. Inconvenient? Yes. Silly? Perhaps even so. But not immoral.

That part is severely debatable. Individual morals differ and the overriding culture affects the morals of the people in the culture.

The current battle over piracy is exactly that, a battle of morals. There are a number of people who disagree that it is not immoral. There's a growing number of people who believe that TV Shows, Movies, Music, Books and the like belong to the society as a whole rather than the content creator. They feel it is immoral for a law to tell them that they need enough money to get information. Is it moral to restrict the intellectual, spiritual, and creative growth of a society based on money?

The content industries have recognized that they are in a battle for the morals of society. This is why all their emphasis is on creating commercials that repeat over and over again that "Piracy is the same as theft and that you are personally hurting a lot of people by doing it". They realize this war will be won once the majority of people feel that it is immoral, not by enforcing the law.

I wouldn't be surprised if, in 50 years, piracy is considered on the moral scale of bank robbery or murder. Either that or Copyright law will be changed heavily and what is considered illegal today will be considered perfectly normal and acceptable then. If that happens, it's certainly possible that the people in the future believe the laws of today to have been completely immoral and only in the best interest of large corporations.

 

[Imban]

It seems clear to me that owning a digital copy of a book provides a number of additional benefits that you would not have simply by virtue of owning a printed copy. Those are benefits that you have not paid for as part of your book purchase. So why should you be automatically entitled to those benefits without paying for them?

Certainly it has advantages, or no one would ever want a digital copy. Some of us just think that it's far, far better for consumers if what we're buying is the ability to use a product as we choose, as opposed to only in the way the company that created it chooses.

For instance, let's say I buy a digital download of a movie that grants me what is generally understood to be the perpetual ability to watch this movie (For instance, perhaps the service compared itself to purchasing the movie on VHS.) Because it is protected by Windows-specific security features, this digital download is only compatible with a Windows PC.

I later decide to purchase a Macintosh. It would then seem clear to me that owning a Macintosh-compatible copy of the movie would provide a number of additional benefits (for instance, being able to watch the movie ever again) that I would not have simply for virtue of owning a PC-compatible copy. I feel they are, however, benefits that I should be entitled to as part of my purchase, same as I feel entitled to rip a CD of music or VHS movie I own onto my PC, especially if the CD or VHS is showing signs of damage and is soon to become nonfunctional. (Heck, I just did that the other day - one of my CDs was scratched so bad it was playing the wrong tracks or jumping tracks mid-song half the time, and it took me about five tries to rip a working copy of every song on it.)

The text search and copy/paste are about the only issues that have merit, because they're actually an advantage you won't usually get if you scan the book yourself.

(Well, maybe also the effort part. As someone who's actually scanned and OCR'd an RPG book for his own use, it's not a negligible effort - I spent the better part of six hours on the darn thing and was using about $350 in equipment and professional software above and beyond just PCs, and I intentionally destroyed my book's binding in the process because I wanted a professional-quality digital copy more than the hardcopy book.)

 

[xechnao]

But surely there are significant additional benefits to having a book in a digital rather than printed format? Don't those additional benefits make a PDF different to a book, even if the content is the same?

For example:

• I can quickly search for something in a PDF. I cannot do that in a book.
• I can easily copy and paste sections of text into my own game notes from a PDF. I cannot do that using a book.
• PDFs weigh a lot less, which makes them easier to transport than books.
• PDFs are not subject to wear and tear, and remain in the same condition no matter how often you use them.

It seems clear to me that owning a digital copy of a book provides a number of additional benefits that you would not have simply by virtue of owning a printed copy. Those are benefits that you have not paid for as part of your book purchase. So why should you be automatically entitled to those benefits without paying for them?

You should pay for those benefits regarding on how much it costs to produce them. If it costed 0 for example you should not pay about them.

 

[Echohawk]

Certainly it has advantages, or no one would ever want a digital copy. Some of us just think that it's far, far better for consumers if what we're buying is the ability to use a product as we choose, as opposed to only in the way the company that created it chooses.

Well, is there anyone who doesn't think that it would be good for consumers to get both digital and paper copies of a product for the same price? I'd certainly like that, obviously.

However, my desire for that to be the case does not mean that I think it is morally okay to assume that that is the case.

For instance, let's say I buy a digital download of a movie that grants me what is generally understood to be the perpetual ability to watch this movie (For instance, perhaps the service compared itself to purchasing the movie on VHS.) Because it is protected by Windows-specific security features, this digital download is only compatible with a Windows PC.

I later decide to purchase a Macintosh. It would then seem clear to me that owning a Macintosh-compatible copy of the movie would provide a number of additional benefits (for instance, being able to watch the movie ever again) that I would not have simply for virtue of owning a PC-compatible copy. I feel they are, however, benefits that I should be entitled to as part of my purchase, same as I feel entitled to rip a CD of music or VHS movie I own onto my PC, especially if the CD or VHS is showing signs of damage and is soon to become nonfunctional. (Heck, I just did that the other day - one of my CDs was scratched so bad it was playing the wrong tracks or jumping tracks mid-song half the time, and it took me about five tries to rip a working copy of every song on it.)

But in both of these examples, you are trying to simply retain the same rights that you originally had -- the right to watch the movie, and the right to listen to the CD. You are not gaining any additional benefits. So these examples do not work as a counter to the argument I just presented that owning a PDF version of a book provides additional benefits that the purchaser of the book has not paid for.