LordEntrails
Hero
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.)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?
(Edit: note, you just admitted above that their is a legal sanctioned version...)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.
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.
No, the confusion was only from your obtuse statement that I quoted and implied the disconnect still existed.Maybe the confusion here is that you think I've been saying they (WotC) have made an immoral decision? Not at all.