DDi and Lack of PDFs

[Estlor]

Not in the Character Builder, but just as viewable documents. I think this would work out well for WotC.

Right. And if WotC was concerned making viewable electronic versions of books in print would hurt the sales of the books, simply don't add a book to the "Wizards' Library" (and yeah, I totally give them permission to use that name if they take this idea) until it goes out of print. You've got all the current, in print 4e stuff in the compendium/character builder as it is. That might not exactly be like having the books, but it at least gives you access to the rules content at any time from any computer.

(As an aside, yes, Scribd does have some D&D stuff on their illegally. The issue is they opened their system up to members with the intention of them uploading their own documents. Some people have used it for less than scrupulous manners, and Scribd does periodically take things down that they find to be in violation of copyrights.)

 

[inklesspen]

Now, you'll probably still get people who will go through the extra steps to hack the system and get at PDFs for the new books, but the goal is not to try and prevent piracy by making it impossible to pirate things. Rather, you attempt to make it so that anyone who would be inclined to spend money on your products will choose to do so rather than go through the hassle of pirating the books.

Here's the thing: It only ever has to be pirated once. After that, all subsequent copies of the pirated copy have a marginal cost of 0, since bits are easily copied. This is the thing that DRM purveyors and proponents refuse to face; if just one person is smart enough and willing to break your DRM, your DRM is worse than useless, since it will not prevent piracy, but it will annoy paying customers.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Here's the thing: It only ever has to be pirated once. After that, all subsequent copies of the pirated copy have a marginal cost of 0, since bits are easily copied. This is the thing that DRM purveyors and proponents refuse to face; if just one person is smart enough and willing to break your DRM, your DRM is worse than useless, since it will not prevent piracy, but it will annoy paying customers.

So the solution is not to protect your IP from electronic theft at all?

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

-commonly attributed to Edmund Burke (but possibly Leo Tolstoy/Sergei Bondarchuk')

 

[Nightson]

So the solution is not to protect your IP from electronic theft at all?

You are never protecting your IP from electronic theft. All you're doing is annoying legitimate purchasers of your IP. That is the point, not that there's something morally wrong with DRM or something it just plain doesn't work.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Personally, I've never been annoyed by electronic anti-piracy efforts.

Maybe I'm not doing something wrong...

 

[inklesspen]

Personally, I've never been annoyed by electronic anti-piracy efforts.

Maybe I'm not doing something wrong...

As an example, just off the top of my head, I bought a DRMed PDF copy of Spock's World, a Star Trek novel by Diane Duane. It used some particular form of DRM that was, at the time, integrated into Adobe Acrobat. It wouldn't work with non-Adobe readers (I use a Mac, and the Mac OS "Preview" app is a far better PDF reader than Adobe Reader) and, one day, Adobe decided to change how the DRM was implemented. Now I had to download and install a separate application which would periodically phone home to Adobe. I couldn't even read my book within Adobe Reader; I had to use this other Adobe app which had an even poorer interface.

So, that's just one example. For another, suppose you have a small child, and he or she likes to watch DVDs. Bob the Builder, Dora, Spongebob, whatever. DVDs, of course, are easily damaged by small children. Wouldn't it be useful if you could make a copy of the DVD, keep the original locked up, and let your child watch the copy? If he breaks it, you just have to make another copy. Of course, DVDs are encrypted -- the encryption is trivially breakable, but it's illegal under US law to share tools designed to break this encryption. This is supposedly intended to prevent piracy (the effectiveness of which you may judge by the availability of bootlegs on the streets of Shanghai), but has the side effect of restricting legitimate uses of the product you purchased.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As an example, just off the top of my head, I bought a DRMed PDF copy of Spock's World, a Star Trek novel by Diane Duane. It used some particular form of DRM that was, at the time, integrated into Adobe Acrobat. It wouldn't work with non-Adobe readers (I use a Mac, and the Mac OS "Preview" app is a far better PDF reader than Adobe Reader) and, one day, Adobe decided to change how the DRM was implemented. Now I had to download and install a separate application which would periodically phone home to Adobe. I couldn't even read my book within Adobe Reader; I had to use this other Adobe app which had an even poorer interface.

Well, that does sound like a pain, but I don't buy novels as pdfs, so that isn't much of an issue to me.

I have had something similar happen to me, though. I have a lot of IP that I produced using certain programs. Some of those programs are now off the market, and even though the companies that created those programs still exist (*coughMicrosoftcoughcough*), they didn't EVER produce translation programs for that older data to be used or accessible in the programs that supplanted the outdated software.

In some cases, that IP is locked up forever...unless I find an older machine (I, too, run Mac) with the right programs installed on it.

But being angered by that- or basing laws on such ocurrences- is like being ticked off that an 8-track tape of Dark Side of the Moon can't be played in my 2008 Honda Accord.

IOW, my answer is either re-create the IP (in my situation) or re-purchase the IP in a friendlier (read: less danger of obsolescence) format. Books rock.

For another, suppose you have a small child, and he or she likes to watch DVDs. Bob the Builder, Dora, Spongebob, whatever. DVDs, of course, are easily damaged by small children. Wouldn't it be useful if you could make a copy of the DVD, keep the original locked up, and let your child watch the copy?

Sure, it would be useful, just like it would be useful for me to photocopy entire books so as not to endanger my originals. It sure would have helped me- I lost a collectible book to a puppy I owned, a book that was a childhood favorite of mine. It would have been awesome to have a "use copy" on hand and the original in some safe place, but instead of that, I wound up replacing the book with a non-collectible edition of it.

The law says that, despite the utility of duplication, there is a greater utility in protecting the right of IP holders to sell complete copies- even multiple copies- to consumers, rather than let the consumers duplicate things at will.

And I'm OK with that.

 

[Sonny]

Personally, I've never been annoyed by electronic anti-piracy efforts.

Maybe I'm not doing something wrong...

While I've never had a problem with pdf anti-piracy methods, the headache I received from Bioshock's DRM certainly caused me to feel that the people who did the right thing and purchased the game were the ones being punished.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

What happened with Bioshock?

At any rate, any anti-theft measures you can think of inconvenience the law abiding in some sense.

The law abiding bear the costs incurred to pay for anti-theft/security measures in the form of:

1) higher prices

2) lost time (think of all the security tags that have to be scanned)

3) waste & trash (rfid tags, warning labels, special inks, shrink wraps- all have an impact on on the environment)

4) possible destruction of legally purchased goods. (Remember explosive dye pack security tags that got placed on certain clothing? Sometimes, clerks forgot to remove them...)

 

[Sonny]

What happened with Bioshock?

At first nothing that had to do with the DRM. I was constantly crashing out of the game though. After uninstalling then reinstalling, then trying other methods to fix the crash problem like updating drivers, cleaning the registry, praying to god, basically anything I could think of and then trying to install again, I quickly reached my activation limit supplied by the DRM, which is twice. The DRM was supposed to give you an install credit back when you uninstalled but it didn't, and the company (SecurRom) refused to give me or anyone else their credits back so the game could once again be played.

Being denied permission to play a game I purchased because of some anti-piracy method, was bull pucky. Fortunately The DRM was taken out by the developers and I was able to once again enjoy the game*.






*Which I finally was able to play without crashing. I'm not sure what I did to fix that. I suspect it was the goat's blood lightly spread across my video card which did the trick.