DriveThruRPG Exclusivity

[maddman75]

I agree completely Umbran. The DRM is not at all analogous to the little security tags in the store. The security tags do not interfere with the functioning of whatever product. Indeed, they are often removed or rendered inert when you leave the store.

The problem is not something to protects your work. The problem is with this intrusive, unreliable, and downright insulting DRM scheme.

 

[PJ-Mason]

Wow, I get busy at work and dont spend my normal time here this week and see what I miss...

I can clear up a few things, if you want me to:

1. I wasnt coerced or in any way influenced to join DRPG.
2. I dont get special terms or special contracts just cause I'm with SSS.
3. I'm not trying to put RPGNow out of business.
4. I havent had DRM shoved down my throat and forced on me.
5. Exclusivity wasnt forced on me. I could have just said no to being a part of the deal.
6. I allowed DRPG to set the price of the two books that are currently up there. I chose to allow them to do that. I didnt take input in my pricing decisions. Not to say I cant or wont, just that so far I havent. I have not given up control over the pricing of my books to DRPG, despite the suggestion of some who have said I have no control over pricing which is not true.

Well first of all, thanks for jumping into the fire Clark
Also thanks for not starting out with "vitriol" laced salvo at the fans of ENWorld, most of who are reacting more calmly (but with no less seriousness) to what is going on.

As for prices, i can live with those. I have all my life. Thats standard consumer practice, i'll buy the product if i think its worth the price being asked. Thats goes for any product, PDF or print. Not a problem really.
In concern for those guys that can't get a print copy for whatever reason, they probably plan to download and print it so they can actually have it on hand. It can cost quite a bit to print these out. Added to the cost of downloading a PDF (if its not discounted enough), these poor people are going to pay a lot more than any of us do just to get a lesser quality version of the book we have. I feel sorry for them.

7. I dont consider our fans to be the enemy. Similarly, I dont in any way buy into the concept that adding security features means I am calling my customers thieves. I dont buy into that hyper-sensitive view of the world. I dont get mad when I go to the electronics store and have to pass through detectors on the way in and out. Or that my books and CDs have little electronic tag things in or on them that have to be deactivated. Or that they check my receipt at CostCo. I dont see that as them thinking "I" am a thief. I think they are trying to prevent others from thievery. To my mind, it takes a rather guilty mind to read any and all security measures as calling you a thief. Plus, I dont buy into the "it cant prevent cracking" argument. Of course it cant. Nothing can. But you cant tell me then that means that if I cant guarantee it 100% that I should then take NO steps at all.

I don't think you went far enough with that analogy about buying books or CD's at a store. There, once you buy the item, the tag comes off. With DRM, that tags stays on the product when you go home. If you want to go somewhere with that book or CD (take a trip or whatever), you have to call up one or more companies to get a deactivation code to do it. And only then if you've upgraded to their lateset cell-phone plan. Some would even have to quit their current phone companies (such Linux, etc) to even be able to make those calls to use the product they just bought from you. Or to even buy it in the first place. Would you buy a book or CD like that? I sure wouldn't.

The suggestion that DRPG has some control over these companies is just not true. I understand why people might think that, but all the same it isnt true.

There sure seems to be a whole lot of mis-information about DRPG and its intent out there. I understand that many people have issues with DRM and fully respect that. But some seem to be taking thier dislike of DRM to a whole new personal level reagarding DRPG and that is sad. I was sorry to come here and read that sort of stuff. Particularly here, a set of boards that are IMHO far more civil than other similar boards (they know who they are).

I think their has been a lot of mis-information on the parts of customers AND DriveThru vendors, purposefully or not. I really don't see your company as bad guys, i've spent a lot of time lately on your company's forums to know your a pretty decent guy. My "boycott" of companies isn't absolute, its just for the people who i don't think are doing this just to provide an extra service to its fans. Personally, i don't know about a lot of the other companies involved, but i have had bad customer relations with at least one of the others, so i'm not going to automatically trust them as i do you.

Anyway, thanks for the back and forth. I appreciate it.

 

[Tsyr]

I'd also like to thank Orcus for comming and talking much more rationaly than some publishers have.

4. I havent had DRM shoved down my throat and forced on me.

Just answer me one simple question with this.

If you called up DTRPG right this minute and said, "Take the DRM off our products, but keep selling them.", would they?

This is a major issue that some people have. Some sources seem to indicate that the DRM was part-and-parcel of the deal of signing on to DTRPG. Indeed, some of the publishers seem to indicate this too (Saying that they turn their product over to DTRPG and after that its out of their hands... other say just the opposite).

7. I dont consider our fans to be the enemy. Similarly, I dont in any way buy into the concept that adding security features means I am calling my customers thieves. I dont buy into that hyper-sensitive view of the world. I dont get mad when I go to the electronics store and have to pass through detectors on the way in and out. Or that my books and CDs have little electronic tag things in or on them that have to be deactivated. Or that they check my receipt at CostCo. I dont see that as them thinking "I" am a thief. I think they are trying to prevent others from thievery. To my mind, it takes a rather guilty mind to read any and all security measures as calling you a thief. Plus, I dont buy into the "it cant prevent cracking" argument. Of course it cant. Nothing can. But you cant tell me then that means that if I cant guarantee it 100% that I should then take NO steps at all.

This is really two issues, so I'll respond as such.

With the first part, as several other people has indicated, what you, as a publisher, feel the DRM means isn't relevent. Your *customers* feel this way. As others have also pointed out (many times, in many threads), the store-tag analogy just doesn't work.

With the second, no, I'm not saying that.

What we are saying, though, is that DRM is *so* useless that you shouldn't use it, in a situation like this. The people who pirate this stuff aren't computer noobs. Your using a format that has been cracked to hell and back since the summer of 01, at least, if not earlier. That isn't even secure from legal, commercial applications, much less script-kiddy cracking programs.

And it breeds a lot of ill-will. DRM, and most things to do with the DMCA, are some of the most hated, loathed, and detested things facing electronic media today. Even with the best of intentions, from the nicest people in the world, it's going to cause problems, anger, hurt feelings, and hatred. Add in the fact that some publishers (Not you) have been downright hostile regarding our dislike of it, the fact that there has been (at least percieved) evasion and double speek in some instances (Not pointing fingers), the fact that some publishers have taken the rather standoffish stance that seems to read as "If you complain, the products weren't meant for you anyhow", and the fact that a very beloved PDF publisher, Monte Cook, jumped on ship, and took all his previously open PDFs with him... Well, you have a perfect growth medium for negativity.

8. I am trying to ADD a service and meet needs of people who otherwise do not have access to Necro books, such as people overseas or in countries that have onerous duties on books. It does seem somewhat strange that people are getting heat for ADDING a service and had they simply done nothing and not met a need for some fans (sure, not all), they would be getting NO flack.

As has been pointed out, a lot of these same people are in situations that make DRM a hell of a hassle too, if not downright unusable.

Nobody is arguing that it's a good thing these publishers are putting their toe in the water. But the fact is, DRM is a very, very vile concept to a lot of people. Regardless of if you see the logic in this or not, it is.

In this case I partly place blame on DTRPG... If they were going to publish with DRM, they should have explained this to the publishers. They had to have known.

As for adding a service... To many peoples eyes, my own included, a service that comes with so much baggage is worse than no service at all, because the people providing the so-called 'service' tend to a get a "You should like it because we say you should" attitude about it.

The suggestion that DRPG has some control over these companies is just not true. I understand why people might think that, but all the same it isnt true.

There sure seems to be a whole lot of mis-information about DRPG and its intent out there.

Because it seems DTRPG as a whole doesn't always know what's going on, much less trying to compile facts from a variety of sources. The deal with how many computers you could register it on, for example.

I understand that many people have issues with DRM and fully respect that. But some seem to be taking thier dislike of DRM to a whole new personal level reagarding DRPG and that is sad. I was sorry to come here and read that sort of stuff. Particularly here, a set of boards that are IMHO far more civil than other similar boards (they know who they are).

I don't mean to sound condescending with this, honestly, but I've mulled the concept around in my mind and can't think of a more diplomatic way to say it, so I'll just be blunt and appologise in advance.

Doesn't that tell you something? That forums that are known to be civil and polite have been brought to this, to the point where Morrus and crew have had to start slapping people with temporary and permanent bans just to keep things to some halfway acceptable level of civility? I'm prepared to accept that the publishers were unaware of the level to which DRM was opposed. But I cannot accept that DTRPG wasn't aware, if they were planning to use it. I maintain that the publishers should have been told this.

Individualy I really don't harbor any ill will towards most of the publishers, save a small percentage that have been rather rude regarding our complaints. I'm sorry this happened, most of you are great people who don't deserve all this ill will. But its sort of a "you made your bed, now you have to sleep in it" deal. No matter how much I like you and your products, I have my limits. Everyone has their limits. And by embracing DRM, you went beyond many, many peoples limit, in one fell swoop.

I urge you to reconsider the DRM on your products (And, maybe, a 25% drop in price on your pdfs... c'mon, some of us are poor college students )... I've enjoyed your products in the past and would like to continue to do so. I know I'm not alone on that, either.

 

[BryonD]

To my mind, it takes a rather guilty mind to read any and all security measures as calling you a thief.

It is not a matter of being called a thief. It is a matter of having restrictions placed upon us that are only intended to stop illegal activity, but stop fair use activity as a side effect. So it is not a matter of perception as you seem to describe it, but rather a matter of real event.

Plus, I dont buy into the "it cant prevent cracking" argument. Of course it cant. Nothing can. But you cant tell me then that means that if I cant guarantee it 100% that I should then take NO steps at all.

At some point the reduction in value of the product out weighs the value of the security added. And the reference to 100% implies that you are in that ballpark. It is SO easy to crack that adding a page to the front of the document stating that coping and distributing is not allowed in a giant font would be virtually just as good.

My reply would be you can't tell me that you should take ALL steps just because they add greater than 0% to the guarantee. Not saying you are not free to do whatever you want with your product. You, of course, are absolutely 100% free to do WHATEVER you want with it. But the reaction you get will correlate to the reasoning behind that action and the results it causes.

8. I am trying to ADD a service and meet needs of people who otherwise do not have access to Necro books, such as people overseas or in countries that have onerous duties on books. It does seem somewhat strange that people are getting heat for ADDING a service and had they simply done nothing and not met a need for some fans (sure, not all), they would be getting NO flack.

First, there is a big difference between the flack being aimed at DTRPG and the flack being aimed at Necro.
DTRPG has contributed to a REDUCTION in service to many of us. A lot of products that we regularly bought from other vendors are no longer availablr in the user friendly format we used to gain without us being forced to skate the law.
That caused a significant amount of anger at DTRPG.
Then the defenders of DTRPG came otu guns blazing instead of acting like they wanted to try to make their fan base happy.
This increased the anger an order of magnitude.

I also don't see why you must have *THIS* DRM in order to sale to overseas people.

But some seem to be taking thier dislike of DRM to a whole new personal level reagarding DRPG and that is sad.

Agreed. But I place 90% of the blame on the behavior of DTRPG and a few publishers (not Necro).

 

[malladin]

Okay, this DRM business is getting interesting.

Firstly could just summarise to make sure I've got a handle on the issues...

There seems to be two main arguments aginst DRM (I'm not even going to go anywhere near whether DTRPG has any repsonsibility or not):

1: That DRM is kind of 'morally reprehensible'.

2: That DRM is flawed and inhibits the buyer so much that it will inevitably impact on the sales of the products.

okay, here's my thoughts (small and insignificant as I am)...

1: I find it very difficult to get worked up about one side or the other of this argument. I can see that intellectual property rights are a big issue, but for myself, at the level of the market at which I am trading, I don't see it as a big problem. I think my stuff is well enough known by enough influential people in the online gaming community that should another company rip off some of my stuff I'd probably just get publicity for my work. Hell, most of it is OGL anyway, so most of the time it's not even dodgy. I also don't have a great worry about people distributing my work for free over P2P networks and the like. I think I'm just pretty much small fry and that no-one would really be interested in doing that to my books (I suppose its the same reason I don't bother to lock my car - its a clapped-out piece of junk that no-one would bother to steal). I also think that were I a bigger publisher with my works in print there'd be nothing to stop someone with a scanner simply scanning the pysical book in and doing the same anyway. I know my thoughts are tempered with a large amount of apathy due to my perceptions about the size of my company, so I don't know if they would change if I did this more seriously.

2: Surely this is a case of wait and see. People are always rushing in to say how bad some new change is going to be before they've given it chance to see if works or not. For fans of 'proper' football (Soccer to the heathen ) there was a significant change made to the way league tables were calculated about 20 years ago. Previously teams were awarded one point for a draw and two points for a win, with 22 teams in the league playing each other at home and away during the season. At the end of the season points totals are added up to see who wins the league. The change was made to make a win worth three points (with the draw still being worth 1 point). At the tine this change had many nay-sayers, claiming how it would spoil the very nature of the game. Fortunately it did. It put the emphasis on attacking play which has changed the game from being something that was largely a working-class interest to the world's most popular sport. May be DRM will be a success, maybe it won't, but surely we need to wait and see. I personally would rather not be the person beingtold 'I told you so' than be in a rush to be able to say it myself.

Cheerio,

Ben

 

[maddman75]

One thing to remember though is that this is NOT new, untested technology. It has been around for some time, and has not been greatly successful and has been generally reviled. Here is my biggest fear.

- Piracy on the DRMed materials will actually increase, for two reasons. One, cracking the encryption is a lot easier than scanning a whole book. And you end up with a better quality product, in theory losing only bookmarks as I understand. Second, anything with DRM is like putting a big sign on your product that says "Please pirate me so you can brag about it on IRC"

- The public will be greatly turned off by these crippled PDFs, ultimately causing DTRPG to falter.

- End result that more piracy is going on and few publishers will want to get behind electronic publishing.

 

[Orcus]

Good points made above. My theft example probably doesnt go far enough. And as you say it doesnt matter if I buy into it. There is definately a core of people who are "allegedly" my customers who say they wont touch products that have DRM. I myself dont find it to be insulting. I realize there are people who do.

Now, I should also add that I believe that persons who hold these moral revulsion to products using DRM to be a very vocal minority. But I dont know one way or another. One thing I can tell you is that I am not going to make a rash decision one way or the other based on a week of flaming on a board. I've seen it before and in my experience RARELY does the vocal mob mentality (note: I am not calling everyone who is anti-DRM to be a mob, but I think we can say there is a rather rabid critical faction here and on RPG.net; most of the posters on this thread recently are making excellent and rational points that are useful for me as a publisher) actually represent a significant group of purchasers--particularly on these types of topics. But I dont know. I will wait and see.

One thing I have done right away is edit that "professional" reference from the standard press release for DTRPG. Frankly, I didnt even catch that language as offensive, but once I read some of the complaints I re-read the release and said "yeah, I see why that might upset people" and I removed it. So I am listening.

To me there are valid reasons for DRM, if for no other reason than that it encourages otherwise unwilling companies to be a part of the project. If you remove the "moral revulsion" factor, I truly dont find the restrictions that onerous. I tried it out with the free download. I could copy and paste and I felt I could use the document as I needed to use it. The only thing I felt the restrictions might have limited me was that they didnt allow me to do 100% of anything I wanted. But the things I couldnt do were things that I wasnt really going to do. I was losing hypothetical usability, not actual usability. But that is, perhaps, just me.

What I need to decide is are these "alleged" customers who claim they wont buy my pdfs with DRM actually going to be customers if I remove the DRM (presuming I am willing to) or not?

Right now, I'm not sure. What I see is alot of new people posting here. I suspect these are RPG.net types who have come here to vent their bile and anger over this issue. I also take note that RPG.net is on fire with this discussion, which speaks volumes to me as to how I should interpret this.

Plus, in all honesty, I'm not sure that removing DRM actually would make many of these "alleged" purchasers happy. Maybe I am wrong, but I think many of the "I object to DRM" alleged purchasers will continue to dislike DTRPG no matter what. They will just move on to the "its run by WW and I dont like that" issue. Or to the "you are trying to ruin RPGNow" issue. Or any other issue.

Here, for example, is a common sentiment on ENWorld:

I mean, they put down RPGNow; they deny they are White Wolf, even though they are owned by the same people, use White Wolf employees, and have just about the entire line of WW productus; Monte Cook gloats how wonderful DRM is for gamers when it's really not; how it's always WW employees or associates who are rabid defenders of this, but deny their relationship to WW has anything to do with it (Bruce Baught, the Necromancer guy, etc)

I'm not a big PDF buyer - I think I've bought 1 from RPGNOw and some of the old OOP TSR stuff, but I do probably buy $40 worth of print RPG stuff a month, most months. From now on, I'm not buying any products from companies who use DTRPG. I'd rather not support companies that go out of it's way to imply it's customers are thieves, are heavy handed, take nasty swipes at their competition, and engage in semantics to try to play games about who owns them.

That guy isnt changing his mind just because I remove DRM. Then, by removing DRM, larger publishers have no interest in joining DTRPG, which I think is one of its greatest benefits. Heck, look at the stuff you can get there. And those publishers, IMHO, are there because of the security of DRM.

I dont want to restart the security issue discussion. I know the different sides.

Could I call DTRPG and ask them to remove DRM? I guess I could. But that isnt the sole issue. As I said above it isnt like people will magically become happy with DTRPG if DRM is removed. I think that is the most convenient crutch for people who are anti-DTRPG for MANY reasons, the DRM just being the leading issue. DRM was not forced on us, but we all signed up for delivery of files over an Adobe server with an understanding the files would be protected/encrypted. That is what we signed up for. It wasnt forced on us.

I for one sort of anticipated people would not like DTRPG right off the bat because so many plugged in people love RPGNow--and for good reason. I thought the entry of DTRPG would cause people to think it would hurt RPGNow. I never saw it as that. In fact, I see DTRPG and RPGNow as doing different things. But I anticipiated some of the hard core RPGNow fans would not initially be warm to DTRPG.

I need some time to figure out what all this vitriol means. I need to know if these people saying they wont by our stuff is legit. Right now I think people are upset with DTRPG for lots of reasons. I dont think just taking off the DRM will fix them and now magically make people say "oh I love DTRPG and want to buy stuff from them." I think they will just move on to another reason why the dont like DTRPG which is something that DTRPG wont ever be able to fix--they arent RPGNow. I dont make rash decision. I take my time and try to figure things out. In the end, I may lose sales or I may not. That is hard to judge. In all honesty, people saying they wont buy my stuff doesnt mean that person actually would have anyway. I have seen this conduct before. I need time to determine what I believe is the actual impact of these comments. I can tell you, I havent recieved even ONE email griping about DRM on Necro titles.

But believe me when I tell you I am listening to all the concerns and I will do my best to tailor the needs of my fans to the most appropriate business model for Necro. I always have and I always will. That doesnt mean I will be able in the end to give people exactly what they want, but I will do my best to find the appropriate solution. I will say that I wont reach this decison over night and certainly not based on soem of the hostile emails. I appreciate everyone's passion, certainly, but I want things to calm down a bit.

I have already looked into personalizing my encryption settings with DRM, such as removing the copy/paste restrictions, and will most likely take that step. I am willing to listen to any rational complaint or concern that I can address. Right now, though, many complaints are coming in such a form that they are hard to act from. I'm not necessairly defending publishers either.

As always, I am happy to come in and answer questions. I hope I addressed some of the things raised after my last post. There was lots of stuff and I might have missed something. If so, repost and I will do my best to answer.

Clark

 

[pogre]

Thanks for the reflective post Clark.

Honestly, the only thing the new security will do for me is to ensure that I buy the print version. That's probably a good thing for publishers like you. I worry about my cpu crashing and I get downright lazy when it comes to dl new software and such. A PDF that I cannot simply save on a cd and use on any cpu does not appeal to me.

A publisher who puts out a lot of modules has the most to gain by using a security code: Modules are the one thing people are going to use once and pass on.

I suspect you will be hurt much less by this move than folks who have deep roots in the PDF market like Monte. Their fan base is accustomed to getting unencumbered pdfs.

The tone of your post suggests that there is a segment of the gaming population that just likes to get mad - you're right. Yet, I think these kind of additional hassles to getting a pdf will shrink the pdf market or at least slow its growth. That is kind of too bad...

 

[jgbrowning]

That guy isnt changing his mind just because I remove DRM. Then, by removing DRM, larger publishers have no interest in joining DTRPG, which I think is one of its greatest benefits. Heck, look at the stuff you can get there. And those publishers, IMHO, are there because of the security of DRM.

I think this is the crux of the real discussion. Does DRM prevent piracy that effects the bottom line (as opposed to piracy that doesn't) enough to off set the loss of customers because of DRM?

I don't think there's a way to measure the real effects for causality and there are reasonable arguments from both sides.

Personally, I think the DRM doen't do so. I think companies, even large companies, will make more profit off non-DRM products than DRM products. Given the ease with which cracked copies will/are appearing, I can't think why publishers are willing to sell less easy-to-use product than pirates are giving away for free. Once the market is entered, it's IMHO better to enter with a product that's as useful as possible to the people willing to pay you for it, especially when everyone of those people have the option of not paying.

I guess what I'm trying to say is if you're going to do PDF, do so in a format that's better or at least just as good as what's available/will be available for free. In my experience, it's always easier to make a second sale if the first sale is easy-to-use and the customer got everything they wanted in utility. I think this is the way to maximize profit in this particular market, not by trying to train customers to accept less utility than the medium allows because of publishers worries of piracy.

One last thing I think I should mention is that I don't think there's a reason why every publisher at DTRPG.com has to use DRM. Allowing each publisher to chose what they'd prefer would seem to me to allow for even more publishers to use DTRPG's services. The utility of DRM is not reduced if not every publisher uses it, and the services of DTRPG are not reduced if a publisher choses to not use DRM. Having it as a possiblity, but not a requirement, seems more potentially attractive.

Joseph Browning
Expeditious Retreat Press

 

[2WS-Steve]

As always, I am happy to come in and answer questions. I hope I addressed some of the things raised after my last post. There was lots of stuff and I might have missed something. If so, repost and I will do my best to answer.

Clark

One thing that has happened is that over the past few years a customer base of people who regularly purchase PDF products has developed. Since I'm one of them, I figure I have some features in common with them.

When I bought my first PDF I wasn't sure how I'd use it, or what value it would have, or how good an investment it was - but I was willing to try it out because Monte's books looked pretty cool and it was only a couple bucks. After a while and a few more purchases I started to buy PDFs more regularly. This happened, because, for me at least, the PDF stopped being merely a less expensive route to a low quality print out of a book, and started being a product that had value as an electronic product. They're easier on me when I move, less shelf space, convenient to pull up at the game table if I bring my laptop along, able to print out just sections for use in a game, and less expensive.

I know that if the only thing the PDF did for me was provide the less expensive route to a low quality print out of a book, that I wouldn't have developed into a PDF customer. From what a number of others here have said, I take it I'm not alone in this. And that's why the following two issues are vital to me (I'll repost so you don’t have to dig):

1. 6 registration maximum limit, then need to call Adobe to deregister.

This limits the value as an electronic product. I figure I would purchase maybe 20 PDFs the initial year as I fill up on out of print material then perhaps 10 PDFs per year after that. After approximately 6 years I'll have gone through enough upgrades of various sorts on desktop and laptop that I'll have run through my registrations. That then means I'll need to call Adobe for all 20 products I purchased the first year. Maybe that can be done in a single phone call, but I don't relish the idea of talking to an Adobe tech support person in Burma to hash this all out. 2 years later I upgrade again and now I have to talk to a tech support person for 40 books, and so on.

Also, as it stands the above isn't even speculative. I'm guaranteed to need to go through this.

2. What happens if DTPRG goes out of business, a publisher folds, or Adobe changes services?

I don't know. Maybe it's not a problem. Does DTRPG keep the registration info or is it all done at Adobe? Or is it a combination of the two? But given that I could be 40 purchases in the hole when I find out the answer wasn't what I was hoping, I think it'd be wise to at least wait for some kind of clear answer posted to the DTRPG FAQ or Concerns page before I take that risk.


*****

I'm a pragmatic person. I understand that publishers want security for their materials. So I don't take it personally that they're using what technology is available to protect their investments.

However, I hope you can understand why a customer like me would be unwilling to purchase given the above concerns.

Perhaps it's the case that this version of DRM is the only technology currently available that makes publishers comfortable enough to release PDF versions of their books. It might also be the case that this version of DRM is sufficiently unpalatable to the existing PDF customer base, and those people who could develop into regular PDF customers, that sales are significantly hindered.

If so, that's an unfortunate barrier to commerce. Which is sad, because I think electronic delivery of books has real potential. As it is, many publishers are sitting on a lot of fairly valuable intellectual property that they can't move because they can't justify another print run, or, even if they did, would only work its way into the most completist of gaming stores. A lot of gamers have books they'd like to purchase, if only they were available in a convenient format. And what we have is a technology that fails to bring these two groups together.