WotC may have sent the Pinkertons to a magic leakers home. Update: WotC confirms it and has a response.

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

Are you now arguing that this move was intentionally heavy handed, so that WotC could scare its customers?

No, I never said it was heavy handed. Actually, I guess to be clear, I'm arguing that this was not as heavy handed as people are making it out to be.

Do you work for their marketing department?

No, I have the misfortune of teaching research to university students. D&D is my escape into a world where I don't constantly want to strangle myself while reading the most obtuse student discussion posts you could imagine.

 

[Dausuul]

I don't understand why some people are defending WoTC. (or at least claiming their actions and choices were no big deal)

Wasn't the OGL fiasco a wake up call?...

Because I don't assume that everything Wizards does is automatically bad just because they're Wizards, and I have yet to see a convincing argument for why this specific incident was a big deal.

"BUT PINKERTONS" ain't it. Their thuggery in the Gilded Age is no more relevant today than their work on behalf of Lincoln and the Union in the Civil War. So what makes them bad now? Well, let's see... their Wikipedia article says Amazon hired them to spy on union activists. Being Wikipedia, it's nice enough to provide a citation for this claim. I followed the citation to an article, which made the same assertion, provided no evidence, and linked another article. This second article finally mentioned -- way down the page -- that Amazon had hired Pinkerton to investigate an allegation that managers were coaching job applicants.

Not quite the same thing, is it?

Since he doesn't have the ability to cause or prevent future leaks, what is it you think they're accomplishing here? Making an example of him?

Getting back the physical product, for one thing. Finding out what happened, for another.

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

Let them take it to civil court, then.

Wait, but isn't that heavy handed for a guy who "mistakenly" got these? I mean, Pinkertons spoke to him and gave him a number to call. Isn't it worse to have to go to court and pay a lawyer to defend you?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Wait, but isn't that heavy handed for a guy who "mistakenly" got these? I mean, Pinkertons spoke to him and gave him a number to call. Isn't it worse to have to go to court and pay a lawyer to defend you?

I edited my post to expand it.

No one would find it worth taking to civil court, because the harms to the streamers are completely mundane and part of the general media landscape when you're reporting on something that's the subject of widespread public interest. They get scooped all the time, for a host of reasons.

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

So...if we know it's not effective...why are we doing it?

Humans are stupid. We do things because we are used to doing it the same way. Progress and change takes a long time and a lot of effort. When you have half your population actively fighting that progress, it takes longer. So basically, the human species will die before we manage to figure out how to be civil to each other.

1. Do not go after or harass your customers.
2. Profit.

Not a well thought out plan, is it? You've completely missed the point. What would you do if you were the person at WoTC that had to deal with this YouTuber? Your job is to get the merchandise back. How would you go about it, so this guy's wife doesn't cry early in the morning.
Would you just not do anything about it? Just let it go? Great, WoTC fired some guy for being nice. Now we can all argue about the evil that we just witness with WoTC cutting the jobs of the good employees.

 

[Cadence]

I think I completely get why lots of people want to pillory WotC for this.

I don't particularly understand why folks (especially those who make a living off of IP) want to excuse the guy who posted it all early.

I really don't understand why it seems like everyone who gets these early sets to leak always takes such #%! low quality pictures of them. I mean, especially if you have them at home and aren't trying to be covert in a warehouse or something.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I'd assume it's mostly down to men making more money and being less risk adverse than women. A fine means it's illegal for poor people, but the rich just pay the fine and do it again because they can afford to.

That article just isn't correct.

"Punishment" certainly has some deterrence value. In other words, once you move away from the purely Kantian idea of moral desert to the utilitarian model, you find plenty of studies showing there is some value in deterrence.

The argument is over the signal- briefly ...

1. For deterrence to work, it has to be certain, and it has to be reasonably quick. In other words, the less likely you are to get caught, and the more attenuated the punishment from the act, the less effective the deterrence.

2. It has to be calibrated. For example, Finland is better at deterring speeding because they calculate speeding tickets based on income, and because they utilize more automated systems. America? Not so much.

3. People are not great at differentiating punishments- so there is various empirical studies showing that beyond a certain amount, additional "punishment" doesn't have much effect at deterrence. People might be rational, but the difference between a 15 year and a 35 year jail sentence (to use arbitrary examples) just doesn't register.

4. Finally, it has to be clear. If you don't have a reasonable knowledge of what the punishment is likely to be, then there is little deterrent effect.

All that said, no one can credibly argue that punishment doesn't have deterrent effect. If you don't believe the literature, just look at any society where the law has broken down.

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

I edited my post to expand it.

Too late!!!!

No one would find it worth taking to civil court, because the harms to the streamers are completely mundane and part of the general media landscape when you're reporting on something that's the subject of widespread public interest. They get scooped all the time, for a host of reasons.

I don't think streamers would consider the harm they suffer to be "mundane." They might get scooped, but I'd argue they get scooped because those companies have formed strong relations with the individuals that are doing the scooping and allowing them to do so.

Also, people file lawsuits for any number of reasons. It can actually be a real problem for the courts. They have frivolous lawsuits being filed all the time. So many, in fact, that they have basically just started to rubber stamp them and no one knows what the suit is about until the judge reads it in court and realizes some guy wants $80,000 for a pair of pants from a dry cleaner.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't think streamers would consider the harm they suffer to be "mundane."

I assure you, they are used to it.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

If the release date of the product is May 12th, then it's not unlikely they are already somewhere in distribution channels. Stores regularly break Lego's street days, sometimes over a month in advance. People having been posting reviews for weeks of the newest May 1st Lego sets. My understanding is Lego is known to fine stores that break the street date, but I've never heard of them going after consumers or youtubers who review the sets.*

If his distributor broke street date, wouldn't that be a breached contract with WoTC, but would not have made the goods stolen?

*Youtubers who manage to purchase the sets at retail before the street date, not youtubers who are part of the Lego Ambassador program and get sets early for review

My understanding is that MTG cards and other items like this are generally released to distribution a week ahead of time, in order to avoid this type of problem. So the issue would have come from farther upstream.

He said he received it on Friday, April 21. That's three weeks ahead of time. If there had already been a release to individual POS (points of sale), then they wouldn't bother trying to track it down like this.

TLDR; these aren't Legos. If someone has specific information that the above timeline is inaccurate, that would be cool.