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<blockquote data-quote="wayne62682" data-source="post: 4966741" data-attributes="member: 40455">Because it's not theft, and people keep using that comparison to justify why &quot;downloading music is bad, m'kay&quot;.&nbsp; An intangible thing like a piece of software or a virtual file that doesn't really exist cannot be &quot;stolen&quot; in the same sense as a tangible thing like a car, or computer, or bicycle, and the value lost to the company is nonexistent because they can just make another copy of it at no cost to themselves.If I create a PDF and sell it, then the cost of making another PDF doesn't exist since it's just a collection of 1s and 0s that a computer translates to pretty images and text.&nbsp; If somebody downloads my PDF, then they aren't &quot;stealing&quot; it.&nbsp; Now there may be issues with IP (which is another can of worms in and of itself) but calling it theft is a just a petty attempt to demonize the people who do it (e.g. &quot;These people are thieves, and thieves are criminals&quot;) and make the person doing the suing seem justified and the &quot;good guys&quot; when in most cases it's the reverse (i.e. people standing up to big greedy corporations who overcharge out of their executives desire to line their pockets; not necessarily lumping WotC into that group however).WotC may be justified, but I'm betting this is going to hurt them more and cause more people to pirate PDFs (especially seeing as there is no legal way to buy them at this point, and when there was it was highway robbery since the PDF cost roughly the same as a the hardcore book despite there being absolutely $0 cost to WotC to produce them since the PDF was used to print the books, so they were making money off of the hardback sales to cover the printing costs.&nbsp; Those PDFs should have been maybe $10 at most, and probably less than that, since 100% of the revenue generated from it is profit since the creator has no expenses for a PDF).&nbsp; They should have instead taken a stance like Microsoft did back in the early days and turn a blind eye - after all if people pirate D&amp;D PDFs it means that they're using them and not a competing system.&nbsp; Eventually they'll buy your stuff; that's how Microsoft got to where it is today, by publicly decrying piracy but doing nothing to enforce it because hey, you've got them locked in to your products now.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="wayne62682, post: 4966741, member: 40455"] Because it's [B]not[/B] theft, and people keep using that comparison to justify why "downloading music is bad, m'kay". An intangible thing like a piece of software or a virtual file that doesn't really exist cannot be "stolen" in the same sense as a tangible thing like a car, or computer, or bicycle, and the value lost to the company is nonexistent because they can just make another copy of it at no cost to themselves. If I create a PDF and sell it, then the cost of making another PDF doesn't exist since it's just a collection of 1s and 0s that a computer translates to pretty images and text. If somebody downloads my PDF, then they aren't "stealing" it. Now there may be issues with IP (which is another can of worms in and of itself) but calling it theft is a just a petty attempt to demonize the people who do it (e.g. "These people are thieves, and thieves are criminals") and make the person doing the suing seem justified and the "good guys" when in most cases it's the reverse (i.e. people standing up to big greedy corporations who overcharge out of their executives desire to line their pockets; not necessarily lumping WotC into that group however). WotC may be justified, but I'm betting this is going to hurt them more and cause more people to pirate PDFs (especially seeing as there is no legal way to buy them at this point, and when there was it was highway robbery since the PDF cost roughly the same as a the hardcore book despite there being absolutely $0 cost to WotC to produce them since the PDF was used to print the books, so they were making money off of the hardback sales to cover the printing costs. Those PDFs should have been maybe $10 at most, and probably less than that, since 100% of the revenue generated from it is profit since the creator has no expenses for a PDF). They should have instead taken a stance like Microsoft did back in the early days and turn a blind eye - after all if people pirate D&D PDFs it means that they're using them and not a competing system. Eventually they'll buy your stuff; that's how Microsoft got to where it is today, by publicly decrying piracy but doing nothing to enforce it because hey, you've got them locked in to your products now. [/QUOTE]

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