Arcane Power: How long before the pirated copy appears

[baphomet68]

Poor example - good choice for WOTC

The lag in AP being posted has more to do with its coming on the heels of WOTC's silly move (And a general lack of interest). For example, "a certain friend" did not learn of the new WOTC policy unill trying to find a torrent of AP the day before release. Not really a lot of time to react.
Pirates are not (usually) do-gooder crusaders. Few of them are going to pay full retail to spit in WOTC's eyee. I guess my point is, this trial run of the new policy is a poor example. Lets see what happens next month with MMII: with no one being caught unaware, I expect we will see a much shorted lag between release and piracy.
"My friend" is unlikely to wait in line to buy a copy on release day, go home, and cut that baby up. Mucho effort, full price? no, no no. But, maybe go in on a sacrificial copy w/a small group of like minded criminals? Oh yeah! And now, the *few* that resist pirated PDF's will now only have pirate versions as an option, they might come on over to the dark side too! (Anyone thinking of MArvel comics PDF-VS-CBR mistakes?)

 

[darjr]

As far as sales go, there is some data from Black Diamond games.

Quest for Fun!: Arcane Power (D&D)

For him it started selling like PHB2 and his distributors are saying that they'll be out so get what you can.

That was a couple days ago though...

 

[The_Fan]

I checked all the major torrent sites - and the entire book is still not up. I did see what purported to be chapters 1-4.

So we are at what now, day 4? Most of the day is gone now too, so looks likely to go to day 5?

I think we can hands down conclude that the change in policy absolutely delayed widespread torrent distribution. How much of an impact on sales that delay makes is up for debate, but I think the folks who said it would cause no delay at all were not correct on this one.

I checked out the first 4 chapters. Very high quality scan, but it is a scan. Not searchable.

Not normally one for conspiracy theories, but I wouldn't be surprised if a controlled leak like that was deliberate. It gets the PDF out there for those of us who just wants a preview and is utterly useless for the pirates who would use it to replace the book. Also, its very presence will likely confuse pirates by constantly popping up mislabeled on torrent sites, and delay the release of the full version since people are less motivated to scan it.

We'll see how long it takes for the full version to make it online. I'm willing to bet that my copy will be here before it is (and it's not scheduled for delivery for about three more days).

 

[tmatk]

I checked out the first 4 chapters. Very high quality scan, but it is a scan. Not searchable.

Not normally one for conspiracy theories, but I wouldn't be surprised if a controlled leak like that was deliberate. It gets the PDF out there for those of us who just wants a preview and is utterly useless for the pirates who would use it to replace the book. Also, its very presence will likely confuse pirates by constantly popping up mislabeled on torrent sites, and delay the release of the full version since people are less motivated to scan it.

We'll see how long it takes for the full version to make it online. I'm willing to bet that my copy will be here before it is (and it's not scheduled for delivery for about three more days).

Are you sure it isn't OCRed? If it isn't I'm sure another copy is; it's very easy to make a scan searchable.

 

[Obryn]

Are you sure it isn't OCRed? If it isn't I'm sure another copy is; it's very easy to make a scan searchable.

Yep, it's so easy that it still hasn't been done for SWSE!

-O

 

[Starbuck_II]

I checked out the first 4 chapters. Very high quality scan, but it is a scan. Not searchable.

Not normally one for conspiracy theories, but I wouldn't be surprised if a controlled leak like that was deliberate. It gets the PDF out there for those of us who just wants a preview and is utterly useless for the pirates who would use it to replace the book. Also, its very presence will likely confuse pirates by constantly popping up mislabeled on torrent sites, and delay the release of the full version since people are less motivated to scan it.

We'll see how long it takes for the full version to make it online. I'm willing to bet that my copy will be here before it is (and it's not scheduled for delivery for about three more days).

So you are saying maybe WotC is fighting Piracy with counter piracy? Bad piracy stopping good piracy from being found?

That is sort of genuis.

 

[renau1g]

hmmmm maybe the nations of the world can take a tip from WOTC and employ their own pirates in Somalia...

 

[The_Fan]

hmmmm maybe the nations of the world can take a tip from WOTC and employ their own pirates in Somalia...

In that case, they're called "privateers," and up until about 200 years ago were quite common.

 

[lutecius]

I checked out the first 4 chapters. Very high quality scan, but it is a scan. Not searchable.

The version i saw yesterday was searchable. You could tell it was scanned but it was bookmarked and OCRed. Really high quality images, too.

Not normally one for conspiracy theories, but I wouldn't be surprised if a controlled leak like that was deliberate. It gets the PDF out there for those of us who just wants a preview and is utterly useless for the pirates who would use it to replace the book.

That would be disrespectful to ddi subscribers. After all, they're paying to be advertised to see previews first.

Also, an extensive preview might be disastrous if the book isn't what people expected or simply isn't that good (like the Wolverine movie)

But again, I don't think poor ocr, heavier files and having to wait a few days or even weeks will make pirates buy books they didn't intend to buy.

Yep, it's so easy that it still hasn't been done for SWSE!

No, it's so easy that it was done yesterday for AP's first chapters

 

[The_Fan]

The version i saw yesterday was searchable. You could tell it was scanned but it was bookmarked and OCRed. Really high quality images, too.

So it is. Didn't notice that before.

That would be disrespectful to ddi subscribers. After all, they're paying to be advertised to see previews first.

As one of the subscribers, the extensive previews do slightly irk me, but for the most part they're either part of another article or playtests of stuff that isn't coming out for months. A 4 chapter preview once the book is already out doesn't bother me.

Also, an extensive preview might be disastrous if the book isn't what people expected or simply isn't that good (like the Wolverine movie)

Ugh. Don't bring that up, or Dudepeel will laser eye you