Are the PDFs illegal, if you own the books?

[Charwoman Gene]

I am not one of these piracy apologists, by a long shot.

I feel a little bad whenever I break this law, just like I do when I fudge my taxes, eat meat on Fridays, run red lights and shred jury duty forms.

But they aren't stolen. Theft has to deprive the owner of the property. It is copyright infringment, and is illegal material and contraband, but not "stolen property"

BTW, if you downloaded it by bittorrent, you have distrbuted it.

IANAL

PS: The above listing is not a list of actual petty crimes commited by me.

 

[Ander00]

... this pdf is outdated and has many issues that were corrected in the final version of the books

Is that so? Of the reported errors, I have yet to notice one not actually being in the books.


cheers

 

[Zogmo]

Also, if someone on these boards ever gets busted for this kind of thing please remember all the support you got from the people. Please inform all of them that you need money now to help pay for legal fees and that it would be great to see them in court with you every time you had to go to lend support and let the judge know how they all feel about this.

I could guess how many people would show up. I would bet the outspoken internet community would remain exactly that and only that.

I am not saying what I think is right or wrong in any of this, I am only conveying what may happen to you.

Edit: Yes making a backup copy (hard or digital) is totally acceptable.

 

[Zogmo]

It's not illegal to own them.
It is illegal to distribute them.

There are various arguments about what kinds of time & space shifting fall under fair use, but seeing as the PDFs weren't derived from the product you purchased, those arguments are shaky at best.

Cheers, -- N

This it totally true. People just need to consider what it's really worth to them. Getting caught in a sting sweep and then let go because you only downloaded STILL costs lawyer fees and time and it's a major pain to just go through the sorting process they have even if they let you go.

 

[Zogmo]

I fudge my taxes, eat meat on Fridays, run red lights and shred jury duty forms.

All at the same time!? Wow, must say I admire how efficient you are at breaking the law. That's pure talent!

 

[Asmor]

Is it illegal to possess them? Maybe, maybe not. It shouldn't be, but it probably is.

More to the point, if Wizards both was interested in prosecuting individuals who had the PDFs and knew that you had them, they would prosecute you regardless of whether it's legal or not.

That's a pretty big if, though.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Whatever someone's OPINION may be about this subject, here is the facts of life when it comes to this kind of thing in a court of law.

It's stolen material. Physical copy or digital copy doesn't matter when it comes to the law. You could by law be busted for possession of stolen goods. Even if you owned store bought movies but they found bootlegged versions of those movies at your place you would be busted for possession of stolen goods. Just because you have a legit copy doesn't make the bootleg any less illegal. The original bootleggers would use that as an argument in court and walk free every time if they only had to have purchased one copy legally.

Will you get busted? You just never know. Though they don't tend to go after one guy at a time with this stuff. They do huge sting/sweeps catching large quantities of people in their net when it takes place usually because the "source" gets busted and if they have an IP record on their computers that you downloaded a copy you may very well one day years from now get a summons to go to court. They will investigate you because even if you only had one digital copy you may have been reproducing huge quantities to sell from that one copy you got. You just never know.

I speak from first hand knowledge of a friend/coworker of mine. He only had a few digital copies of some material he downloaded from a popular website but that was enough to include him in a "sweep" because they had to make sure he wasn't a distributor. He wasn't, but the public embarrassment, legal fees and disruption of his family life were not good at all. And it went on for about two years total with a stern warning that they would be keeping an eye out for him. No jail time because he was just downloading but it really really isn't worth the risk from my perspective.

The point is, you just never know. Anyone who says they know should talk to my friend Erik. He knows.

I love it when a post starts with an admonishing about not taking opinion as facts and then starts in with some opinion that is totally contrary to the facts.

Having a digital copy of something distributed through illegal means is simply not theft.

If you did ask Erik, you would see, based on the text of that post above, that Erik was not charged with theft, he was under suspicion of illegal distribution.

 

[Family]

They are debating the new Canadian Copywrite Act that has been presented to Parliament on the CBC right now.

 

[tenkar]

This would probably fall under Trademark / Copyright Infringement and or Counterfeit Goods.

The Motion Picture Industry and the Recording (Music) Industry actively enforce their rights when it comes to their products.

Publishers in the book trade have yet to unite to enforce any applicable laws.

So no, big brother isn't going to be knocking on your door for downloading PDFs. You are, however, depriving the publisher of any kind of recompense for the PDF that you are using.

I'm a big believer in PDFs (as they keep my dead tree collection relatively constant / takes up less space). RPGNow and YourGamesNow get a good portion of my gaming dollar. I'd hate to see publishers shy away from PDFs for fear of piracy.

{oh, I am NOT the Erik in question... nor have I played him on TV}

 

[roguerouge]

To be safe, yes, you should erase the pdf file from your computer and go through the hassle of scanning in your own copy. While you do this repetitive task, use your spare time to consider what a better world this would be if www.creativecommons.org got more notice and more artists and corporations made use of it.