$125,000 in fines for D&D pirates? Help me do the math...

[evilref]

Certainly. So far as they pay their own expenses.

By your argument I'm free to steal books from any bookshop, Music from any musicshop, films from video stores etc. etc. Actually walk in and steal it, afterall I'm 'paying my own expenses' which are 0.

I cannot believe you're actually espousing this view as being acceptable.

Are you seriously suggesting that people have to pay for the right to do anything they want even if they supply the resources themselves?

If they want to (permanently, not talking about borrowing from a library/friend here) obtain something that another person created then damn right they have to pay for it. They didn't create it, they're benefiting from someone else's work.

Of course as Primal just mentioned you may be correct if you are only speaking about people within the US. The law over there gives a crazy amount of power to companies. luckily we do not recognize those laws in the rest of the world.

I'm in 'the rest of the world' For four years my job has been rights management and copyright laws regarding 'the rest of the world'. Thankfully the majority of the world believes that creators have the right to be paid for their creations. Likewise that copying of another's work without their permission is unlawful. The number of first world or developing world countries who believe otherwise is actually the minority. Try checking out how many countries have signed up to the Berne Convention before thinking this is a US-centric issue.

This very likely is the cause for the entire argument thought the history of this long and tedious debate. One group is correct and they live in US, the other group is correct and lives anywhere else.

See above paragraph. You're very, very wrong here.

 

[Runestar]

If you want to preview something, can't you just go to your nearby gamestore and browse there or something? Then if you decide you like it, order it online.

I find the whole "just previewing" argument somewhat of a slippery slope. Once you have procured an illegal download, what incentive is there for you to go about actually purchasing a legal copy, when you now have a free (and just as good) copy sitting in your hard drive?

A small minority of people might, but I suspect the majority would just download it illegally and justify their actions by stating that the book turned out to not be all that interesting, and they would not have bought it anyways. This despite the PDF continuing to reside in their computer, and they using the material inside like nobody's business.

 

[avin]

Certainly. So far as they pay their own expenses.

Are you saying people in your country can borrow a book they didn't buy, take a copy and use it?

I don't think it works like that on every country around, it certainly won't work here in Brazil...

 

[ki11erDM]

I cannot believe you're actually espousing this view as being acceptable.

He is not making a legal argument. He is making a political argument. He is just espousing the glories of true socialism and the horrors of capitalism. But this is EnWorld were we can not have political discussions so we can not talk about it in those terms.

 

[evilref]

He is not making a legal argument. He is making a political argument. He is just espousing the glories of true socialism and the horrors of capitalism. But this is EnWorld were we can not have political discussions so we can not talk about it in those terms.

The problem is socialism...wait, can't talk about it in those terms. Hmm...


Bunnies and Burrows doesn't think that people can just take whatever they want. FATAL did but let's face it, that's why it was never published at all and is now something people don't like to talk about outside of strange student parties that happen in the dark where no one actually knows anyone else's name and if they see someone a FATAL partygoer on the street the next day they shuffle quickly away without looking them in the eye.

 

[Umbran]

What feeders? I think you misunderstand the concept. If noone else uploads a copy to the internet i am going to have to borrow a hardcopy from the lads at the gameshop and scan it myself to hand around to my players. And once we do that sooner or later one of us will upload it privatly to a few friends, such is the way of things

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let me make one thing perfectly clear - EN World does not condone copyright violation. The health of our hobby in general, and the livelihoods of a number of our members, depends on people getting paid for their efforts creating content for us to use in our games.

We may allow some discussion on the legalities and ethics involved. However, we do not want to see or hear about specifics of your past or intended future illegal activities. We do not want to see you encouraging others to break the law.

Do not bring such conversation to these forums, please.

 

[AllisterH]

If you want to preview something, can't you just go to your nearby gamestore and browse there or something? Then if you decide you like it, order it online.

I find the whole "just previewing" argument somewhat of a slippery slope. Once you have procured an illegal download, what incentive is there for you to go about actually purchasing a legal copy, when you now have a free (and just as good) copy sitting in your hard drive?

A small minority of people might, but I suspect the majority would just download it illegally and justify their actions by stating that the book turned out to not be all that interesting, and they would not have bought it anyways. This despite the PDF continuing to reside in their computer, and they using the material inside like nobody's business.

Which again, doesn't work with scribd.com

Scribd.com actualy allows you to view the entire book online and you can download it as well.

So, if this case was taken from scribd, I'm kinda surprised there are people arguing that they were just previewing the material. If anything, you don't actually need to download anything....

(p.s. there's something very interesting on scribd.com. There's no actual pathfinder product on the website EXCEPT for the PF BETA. I thought maybe it was a case of people not pirating PF product being lesser known, but that makes no sense since everything for even smaller product lines like Mutants and Masterminds are all there....I think someone at paizo _IS_ keeping an eye out for their products)

 

[georgegad]

-- Moderator warnings
-- More people presenting the same points as above but in different words to avoid moderator hammer.
-- Moderator bans and thread closing.

Seriously. I thought he was joking.

.... we do not want to see or hear about .....

Well perhaps that explains why your locals hold such odd views so very strongly.
However out of respect for your group i shall discontinue the discussion.


My opinion is of course unchanged, i am only saddened i could not effectively explain my position.

Apart from that best of luck to you all. Game on.

 

[Obryn]

My opinion is of course unchanged, i am only saddened i could not effectively explain my position.

Apart from that best of luck to you all. Game on.

Nobody's saying you can't discuss your views. Umbran was saying you shouldn't discuss the specifics of your own illegal acts, nor encourage others to do so.

-O

 

[Umbran]

Well perhaps that explains why your locals hold such odd views so very strongly.

We don't think so. Folks are quite allowed to discuss what they don't like about current law, and how it should change (and have done so in this very thread) so long as it is civil and polite. We have had repeated discussions of the ethics involved. The topic probably comes up once every couple of months - usually in response to some news item about pdf sales or somesuch.

Talking about how the law should be changed is quite different from advocating breaking the current law. Restricting the latter has not shown any inhibition in the former.