4ed torrents -How'd it happen?

[Argyuile]

A torrent isn't in and of itself a file, a torrent is more like a pointer to a file or a file broker if you will.

A torrent says hey who has the file named X out on the torrent network, then some number of machines say "hey I have that actual file".

At that point the torrent program starts downloading the parts of the file it still needs from different sources until it gets the whole thing and puts it back together for you.

 

[mattdm]

As for legality, obviously it isn't, but to what degree? If Wizards found out who did it, could they sue? (They'd obviously get fired). And what about those that post it?

I'm no lawyer, but it's almost certainly a trade secret before publication, in addition to being protected by copyright. The possible penalties for this make what the RIAA sues for look like peanuts:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1832.html

Plus there's possibly some regular old violation of contract going on as well.

If someone gets caught, they're so in trouble. But since it really could have happened at a lot of points along the chain, unless they did something really dumb (always possible!) it'll be hard to catch them.

And download it? I'm guessing that it is illegal to offer it for download, but maybe not to actually download it?

Still not a lawyer, but nope, that's at least copyright violation and probably falls under 3a of the above-linked law. So, yeah, not so good on that front either. After the release date, it's no longer a secret (sorta by definition), but copyright still applies.

But you can't put the cat back in the bag, and in the digital age, the cat is a dire tiger and the bag made of tissue paper. It seems unlikely (sigh) but I think the best response for WotC to make would be to simply offer the PDF for sale legitimately as soon as possible. (In a DRM-free format that's as convenient as the illegal one.) Make it, say, $15/book, with a $10/book mail-in rebate for owners of the hardcopy versions.

I want both versions and I'd pay for the electronic ones in a heartbeat — and not just to make a point.

 

[Sphyre]

I'm one of those folks that is always a few years behind technology (I'm just shopping for an mp3 player now), so I have no idea what a "torrent" is except that it is a downloadable file. I've heard that there are high-quality PDF torrents of the core books on the internet and I am wondering how that came about. I mean, from what I've heard, *ahem*, they aren't scans but high-quality PDF files. How did they become available? Did someone from Wizards with access to the original publication files set them up for free download? How is this possible otherwise?

From what I've heard from a friend, aside from all the different rumors on the internet, at least one of the downloads had the PHB with the "cut marks and color bars on the sides." The other two books in the torrent seem to have been mid-res scanned, without having those crop marks and pixelated images.

Since I've heard other claims on both the Wotc and enworld forums I think multiple different versions leaked all at the same time.

Other people have mentioned that all it takes is one person anywhere along the line of from the wotc office all the way until after the files have been printed to steal them or one person getting their books early due to buy.com breaking the street date and scanning them in. Both create an opportunity to make a pdf and torrent it.

Torrenting is a method of file sharing. Usually when you want to share something to a large number of people, if you have only one person who has it, it can cause severe slowdowns or even crashes on the person who is hosting when they get overloaded with requests to download the file.

A torrent cuts up that file into small pieces and starts sharing that file with a few people who have requested the file. Then those people, once they get the small segments, start sharing those with other people while requesting the ones they need. It expands so that everyone is sharing off of each other and not putting a huge strain on the person who first hosted the file. While it's overall slower for any one individual to download the file, it's overall faster for everyone to get it, along with being a lot more stable than trying to get it queued from a server.

 

[Nail]

To put it another way, my guess is that the percentage of folks that don't buy the books because they have the PDFs is quite small, and that it is off-set by people who, after seeing the PDFs, decide to get the books.

That's my thought too.

I pre-ordered the books on Amazon. Boy was that a mistake! => I clearly should have pre-ordered them on Buy.com. So the fact that the pdfs are available takes some of the sting out of not having the actual books as early as everyone else.

Don't worry, WotC: I still have the 3 core books on pre-order. I'll still buy them, so no money of yours was lost.

 

[Lizard]

Word on the street is theft... Whether it be an inside job or not remains to be seen.

I can tell you that proof copies in the publishing industry are emailed around like nobody's business, so it could be a "pick" or it could be a "leak"...

Word on the street?

Scene: A seedy dive. Dark smoke hangs coiled in the air like a boa constrictor in a rainforest, if boa constrictors coiled in the air and not, you know, on branches. A man in a dark trenchcoat sits slumped in a chair, slowly sipping on a beer. Another steps out of the shadows and sits down opposite him.

"So. Johnny."
"Whatcha' want? I don't know nothin' 'bout nothin', y'hear?"
"That's not what I hear. I hear you got a line on who leaked those books."
"Books? What books? Do I look like the kinda guy who reads?"
"You know what books. It's all over town. The *magic* books."
"I don't believe in no fairy tales."
"You believe in this, though, don't you?"

He slides a pile of green bills across the table. Johnny grabs it, fingers it desperately, then, with a quick glance, shoves it into an empty pocket and leans forward.

"It was the printer, see? Joey Inkstains. Needed some scratch to pay off some big debts, so he let them slip. OK?"

"Sure thing, Johnny. Not a problem. We'll...talk with Joey."

"Hey...hey! I didn't tell you nothin', right? You heard nothin' from me!"

"Of course, Johnny, of course. Don't worry about. It's not like Joey will be coming around again anytime soon, anyway...not unless he was raised from the dead. Heh, heh."

"Yeah, that's a ritual now. Only 500 gold! Oh sh..."

"Oooo, Johnny. You didn't READ those books, did you? Before the ship date?"

"Just...just a glance! Really!"

"Johnny, Johnny, Johnny...what are we going to do with you? Can't have you leaking stuff all over. Bad for business..."

(Two large gentleman emerge from the bar and walk menacingly forward. The other man stands, leaves the table, in order to give them full acess.)

"They've got to save their dailies for Joey, but they've got plenty of encounter powers just for you..."

(Fade Out)

 

[Nail]

I want both versions and I'd pay for the electronic ones in a heartbeat...

me too.

And the for-sale pdfs should be indexed, searchable, etc.

The mail-in rebate sounds like an excellent idea....which means a corporation like Hasbro won't be able to pull it off. Sorry WotC!

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I'm just going to jump in here to ask that everyone try to keep within the rules of ENWorld! We've had a few threads about the piracy of the 4E books, and we've eventually had to close every last one of them, as they tend to dip into the waters of politics, or people's posts get heated, or someone implies how to go about getting the books, or sometimes all three at once.

I'll leave this open for now, but we'll be keeping a close eye on it.

-Kid Charlemagne, EN World Mod.

 

[Harr]

To put it another way, my guess is that the percentage of folks that don't buy the books because they have the PDFs is quite small, and that it is off-set by people who, after seeing the PDFs, decide to get the books.

That's a common argument for the open-source and free-sharing philosophies. Personally I agree, objectively, there's no way to know for sure. The whole thing is strictly a "truthiness" issue from any point of view.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

WotC likely put a unique digital watermark on every copy they distro'ed between the printers and those swapped between the content editors. If they didn't...well, then they're not going to be able to idetify the source of the leak.

Digital watermarks are entirely invisible to the naked eye, and are generally embedded into images within print copies.

 

[Raylorn]

Frankly, I did not pre-order until after I heard the books were leaked and saw people commenting on them. I have seen a few good reviews and a few bad reviews on the information from within the community. After all the drama started, I knew I wanted the books for myself. I am the type of guy who will pay for a game even if I have the hack. If it is a good game and I play it more than the 20 minutes to see if I like it, I believe that the programmers should get paid. I feel the same about these books.

Yeah, they are still getting my money. I am not upset about it in the least. Now if they can just get the DDI stuff up and working...