Arcane Power: How long before the pirated copy appears

[Obryn]

It's going to be out there very soon, if it's not already. That's been the pattern since the 3e days. However, I'd be curious to know its quality. I mean, it doesn't take much work to throw up a PDF full of image scans, which will clock in at 80mb or more and lack any kind of search functionality.

It takes a lot more work to OCR a document, check it, index it, typeset it, and bookmark it. I would be very surprised if this were done already - or if it's done soon. AFAIK, it's still not done for the Star Wars Saga Edition core book (which is a perfect analogue, since it has no legal PDF editions), and that's been out since May, 2007.*

I don't believe WotC would go into something like this, expecting to foil piracy in general. I do believe that they expect the quality of the pirated materials will decrease sharply.

Will this lead to more purchases of the physical books? I don't know. But, if people are serious that they mostly grab pirated PDFs as a "preview" rather than for actual table use, I think it should. After all, a clunky scan has far less utility than one of the official WotC PDFs. It's much less of a substitute for a physical book at the game table.

-O


* However, with the recent removal of WotC PDFs as a pirate-able option, I would not be at all surprised if some enterprising soul took it upon themselves to put a lot of work into this one. I would be surprised if this continued.

 

[NameTry2468]

Yeah I'd pass that one up if I were you. It's probably another one of those stupid links that takes your search query and just adds "________ [FULL VERSION 100% w/ keygen!]" to it.

 

[onimachi]

Um, I don't know where all of the people claiming to have found it are getting it from, but no one else on the internet seems to be able to. Not even the private trade guys. Like the rest of the people on here, I agree that it's not up on any of the usual suspects, nor is it on any of the lesser known ones. I even looked for .pdf files posted within a couple of days with similar names. nothing. Whoever says it's easy to find, or says they found 2-3 instances in 10 mins of casual searching on Google, I'm calling your bluff. : ) I found 1, just 1 joke file which was named arcane power, but wasn't. btw, i have the actual book, also dndi sub, just wondering (in the friendliest most non threatening way possible) how only a couple people can find it while the rest of us cannot...

I must admit, I'm surprised that this is working out so well for Wotc. I thought the pirates would take this as a challenge and have it up super fast. From what I heard, all one needs to do is take apart the book and scan it, but maybe there is more to it (I don't know a lot about piracy). hmm.

 

[Kask]

Um, I don't know where all of the people claiming to have found it are getting it from,

You have no idea of the power of the Darknet.

 

[Obryn]

From what I heard, all one needs to do is take apart the book and scan it, but maybe there is more to it (I don't know a lot about piracy). hmm.

That's more or less it, followed by the distribution. It's a fairly quick process, once someone cares enough to do it.

In some rare cases, someone will also care enough to turn it from raw images more or less stitched together, into something much more complete and detailed. I know that folks tend to understate the difficulty of this, but really - OCR and all the associated processes are not quick. Especially not for 4e, where most powers have a variety of textual, special symbol, and formatting needs. (It's one thing to OCR a scanned letter. It's another to OCR blocks of powers and complex tables.) I'll again point to my example of the Star Wars Saga Edition core rulebook - to my knowledge, nobody has bothered to OCR that yet, and it's a fairly popular game line.

Yes, it can be done. It just usually isn't. The thing is, there's no money in it, so there's often no motivation, either. And stop with the "power of the darknet" garbage... If there's a high-quality pirated book out there, but the general bittorrenting/grokstering/limewiring/usenetting public can't get to it, it might as well not even exist.

Really, I'm not completely in the dark about illicit PDFs. Nothing - nothing - that I've seen to-date comes close to matching what WotC themselves put out.

-O

 

[onimachi]

the general bittorrenting/grokstering/limewiring/usenetting public can't get to it, it might as well not even exist.
-O

well said.

 

[Kask]

well said.

Yes, there are parts of the net that aren't for the masses.

 

[Eridanis]

This thread is getting waaaay too close to the edge (in terms of where/how to find pirated material - an ENworld no-no and a ban-worthy offense). Keep it rhetorical, please.

 

[Tilenas]

To everyone who's found it by now: Congratulations, people. You are truly great with them interwebs. [/sarcasm]
As was said before, if the major sites that have noteworthy traffic don't offer it yet, it does not matter at all with regard to the topic being discussed here.

 

[onimachi]

Yeah, lets keep it clean, no names/links.