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

[Hussar]

Settled, personally at least, by asking yourself 'if another company did this would I feel that they were over reacting?'

I would, so yes, I think that WotC is going overboard, not just in the settlement, but in pulling PDFs, etc.. I feel the same about RIAA. We are in a litigious society, but that does not have to mean that I like it.

This entirely beside any feelings I have about piracy - I don't do it, and don't think that other people should, either. In this instance I think that both sides are in the wrong. (It saves time when you can just hate everybody! ) I have friends who's first album showed up P2P before they even got the originals in their hands.

The Auld Grump

How are they going overboard? The damages are not terribly over the value of what was illegally shared.

Now, the pdf thing, that's a whole 'nother issue and has very little to do with the damages being awarded. But, I wonder if the value of the damages factors in the decision to yoink the pdf's. If WOTC somehow could show that they had to pull the pdf's because of the illegal sharing.

IANAL, so, I have no idea if that is possible or not. Just tossing it out there.

 

[wayne62682]

It's out of line because if 4,000 people downloaded it, they would not have bought it. So saying "That's $40 per book, times 4,000 people who downloaded it and didn't buy it" is a bogus logical conclusion because those 4,000 people who downloaded it would not have spent the money on the books if they were not able to download it.

It's like saying if I pirate Windows, then Microsoft is losing ~$200 because I'm not buying it. But the fact I'm pirating it means I feel that it's not worth the $200 to buy, so I wouldn't have spent it. Microsoft in this case is really losing $0 because they wouldn't have made a sale from me to begin with.

It's the same thing here. WotC isn't losing money because no sales would have been made if the pirated materials weren't available. They are assuming sales where there would be none to justify the fines, just like any other "pirating" issue.

 

[Wik]

Wayne, you're only partially right.

Some of those downloads would not have been sales - people DL it because they're not totally sold on it, and check it out. But a lot of those WOULD have been sales - people DL it because, well, it's FREE.

I have played with plenty of people who have a huge library of illegally downloaded books - the logic being "well, I spend a lot of money on RPG books already".

One thing people have overlooked are the facts on people that buy the product, but simply download the PDF for ease of use/space on their computer. Which, at least for some games, would categorize me (I don't have any 4e books online... no real need with the DDI. But I do have copies of my dark sun books on my computer - really, all the downloads do there is save me the time of having to scan 'em myself.)

 

[kenmarable]

This isn't directed to anyone in particular, but in general to the Internets, but can we just summarize the next 8 pages of messages as:
-- "They never would have bought it."
-- "It's still theft. Would you steal DVDs out of a store?"
-- "It's not a physical product, so the analogy breaks down. No one is hurt."
-- "I'm a publisher, and I am hurt by those real lost sales."
-- "Repeat, they never would have bought it."
-- "We can never know how many would have been real sales."
-- "I just sample, so it's free advertising."
-- Then several lines of conversation balloon about business keeping up with the 21st century, what is the definition of "stealing", does anyone know if piracy actually helps or hurt sales/nope no one knows for sure, how dare you condone theft, etc. etc.
-- Moderator warnings
-- More people presenting the same points as above but in different words to avoid moderator hammer.
-- Moderator bans and thread closing.

So now that we've covered all the topics that appear in every single thread that ever touches on the issue of piracy, how about some original discussion and/or discussion of this particular case without just re-re-re-re-hashing the same arguments as above? It's obvious that the two sides haven't been convinced by the arguments above and I imagine Morrus has limited hard drive space and bandwidth for recycled debates, so maybe let's just agree that all of the above has now been stated and skip over it this time, eh?

Just a suggestion, take it or ignore as you like.

 

[Wik]

This isn't directed to anyone in particular, but in general to the Internets, but can we just summarize the next 8 pages of messages as:
-- "They never would have bought it."
-- "It's still theft. Would you steal DVDs out of a store?"
-- "It's not a physical product, so the analogy breaks down. No one is hurt."
-- "I'm a publisher, and I am hurt by those real lost sales."
-- "Repeat, they never would have bought it."
-- "We can never know how many would have been real sales."
-- "I just sample, so it's free advertising."
-- Then several lines of conversation balloon about business keeping up with the 21st century, what is the definition of "stealing", does anyone know if piracy actually helps or hurt sales/nope no one knows for sure, how dare you condone theft, etc. etc.
-- Moderator warnings
-- More people presenting the same points as above but in different words to avoid moderator hammer.
-- Moderator bans and thread closing.

So now that we've covered all the topics that appear in every single thread that ever touches on the issue of piracy, how about some original discussion and/or discussion of this particular case without just re-re-re-re-hashing the same arguments as above? It's obvious that the two sides haven't been convinced by the arguments above and I imagine Morrus has limited hard drive space and bandwidth for recycled debates, so maybe let's just agree that all of the above has now been stated and skip over it this time, eh?

Just a suggestion, take it or ignore as you like.

Sounds good to me.

So, let's start.

Wizards of the Coast killed my dog.

 

[kenmarable]

Sounds good to me.

So, let's start.

Wizards of the Coast killed my dog.

Uh oh. Not sure how to say this but that was me in a Wizards of the Coast mask.

Awkward.

 

[Vorput]

Settled, personally at least, by asking yourself 'if another company did this would I feel that they were over reacting?'

I would, so yes, I think that WotC is going overboard, not just in the settlement, but in pulling PDFs, etc.. I feel the same about RIAA. We are in a litigious society, but that does not have to mean that I like it.

This entirely beside any feelings I have about piracy - I don't do it, and don't think that other people should, either. In this instance I think that both sides are in the wrong. (It saves time when you can just hate everybody! ) I have friends who's first album showed up P2P before they even got the originals in their hands.

The Auld Grump

This sums up my feelings on the whole fiasco as well.

 

[carmachu]

I'm not even sure that it is punitive. We know that 4000 (ish) copies of the book were downloaded - Scribt probably keeps that record. We know that a copy of the book is about 40 bucks.

Hmmmm, no. From the original poster:

2,600 copies of the handbook were downloaded from Scribd.com, and more than 4,200 copies were viewed online


4K+ viewed. 2.6K downloaded. Viewed doesnt equal downloaded.

 

[Cadfan]

The numbers in question were probably decided by beginning with potential statutory, compensatory and punitive damages in similar cases, factoring in the cost of litigation (apparently about 15 grand per case) and the likelihood of victory (probably about 100%). Then, based on this calculation, the attorneys for both sides negotiated a settlement somewhere in the middle of each side's estimation of the likely outcome if a trial were to go forward.

As for the number of downloads relied upon in the case, its worth noting that the copies downloaded from Scribd were probably re-uploaded to torrent by some of the people who downloaded it, resulting in far more total downloads. That may not matter if your perspective is statutory damages, but if your perspective is actual harm actually suffered, the chain probably goes a lot further than just Scribd.

Its kind of an awkward case in a way, because it was inevitable that someone would have done this and harmed WotC in this manner, but as it happens these guys were the first and they did it in an easily traceable manner.

Anyways, I have mixed feelings. WotC certainly didn't litigate this aggressively, but the numbers do seem awfully high for a private individual to pay.

 

[Crothian]

Go WotC! This is the settlement, so both parties agreed to this. I see nothing wrong with that. We have no idea how the number was reached one side could have compromised to the other.