E-Tools: Anyone Sharing Custom Files?

[Mynex]

While, I don't condone piracy, software piracy is not theft. If I steal your car, that's theft. Copying your software, while it may cause you to lose a sale, is not theft, as you have not been bereft of your product - you still have it. Whether or not piracy is WRONG is a different matter altogether, but theft, it is not.

Really? So copying software is not theft?

You're denying income to a company. That company doesn't have that sale. 1 sale, big deal, right? wrong. Software companies have employee's to pay, overhead to pay for, some have debts to repay, some have royalties to pay, etc... So you are removing the money that sale would have generated, you deny the company that profit, and by getting the software without paying for it, it is theft. Don't believe it? Ask a lawyer. People are prosecuted very often for software 'Theft' (piracy). The state and federal governments define software piracy as theft, you're personal definition of theft, doesn't matter here, what the law says is what matters.

That was in general, an overall approach to software and piracy. Even 1 'copy' is theft, but in this age of Kazaa and the like, it's never _1_ copy. It is usually in the hundred for smaller programs, or thousands and tens of thousands for larger companies.

And in our case, there is absolutely no reason for it. We don't charge several hundred dollars for our software, we don't charge hundreds of dollars for a data set and we're not a large company. We cater to the community, our prices are reasonable, and even if you don't want to spend the money on the data sets, you can enter the information yourself. It may not be easy for some things, but our forums are there for people to ask questions and we have a community of people perfectly willing to help someone make their own stuff, we (as in CMP) will even help by telling people how to do things.

Getting something you didn't pay for is theft, pure and simple. there is no argument to the contrary, there is no justification.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Really? So copying software is not theft?

You're denying income to a company. That company doesn't have that sale. 1 sale, big deal, right? wrong. Software companies have employee's to pay, overhead to pay for, some have debts to repay, some have royalties to pay, etc... So you are removing the money that sale would have generated, you deny the company that profit, and by getting the software without paying for it, it is theft. Don't believe it? Ask a lawyer. People are prosecuted very often for software 'Theft' (piracy). The state and federal governments define software piracy as theft, you're personal definition of theft, doesn't matter here, what the law says is what matters.

That was in general, an overall approach to software and piracy. Even 1 'copy' is theft, but in this age of Kazaa and the like, it's never _1_ copy. It is usually in the hundred for smaller programs, or thousands and tens of thousands for larger companies.

And in our case, there is absolutely no reason for it. We don't charge several hundred dollars for our software, we don't charge hundreds of dollars for a data set and we're not a large company. We cater to the community, our prices are reasonable, and even if you don't want to spend the money on the data sets, you can enter the information yourself. It may not be easy for some things, but our forums are there for people to ask questions and we have a community of people perfectly willing to help someone make their own stuff, we (as in CMP) will even help by telling people how to do things.

Getting something you didn't pay for is theft, pure and simple. there is no argument to the contrary, there is no justification.

Denying a sale is not theft. I could stand outside a store and warn people away because the owners were terrorists, child molestors, or worse, Auburn fans . That would deny them a few sales, but would not be theft. As you said, I can enter the information myself - that would deny you a sale, too. Piracy is illegal, and rightly so, but call it what it is - piracy,not theft. It is copyright infringement, nothing more, nothing less.

BTW, I think you guys have done a commendable job with E-tools, much better than the Fluid/WOTC travesty.

 

[herald]

Denying a sale is not theft. I could stand outside a store and warn people away because the owners were terrorists, child molestors, or worse, Auburn fans . That would deny them a few sales, but would not be theft. As you said, I can enter the information myself - that would deny you a sale, too. Piracy is illegal, and rightly so, but call it what it is - piracy,not theft. It is copyright infringement, nothing more, nothing less.

BTW, I think you guys have done a commendable job with E-tools, much better than the Fluid/WOTC travesty.

Piracy is a form of theft. Don't kid yourself JRR.

 

[EricNoah]

Let's call a truce here over whether piracy is theft or not, ok?

I can see the frustration, bigtime. I heard early on that there would be some kind of files for Arcana Unearthed (wasn't necessarily for eTools, but at least for PC Gen) but haven't seen anything yet. So I put eTools files together for my AU campaign and share those with my group only. Does it suck that I can't share those with the rest of the world? Sure. I think having them available would be a boon to both the eTools and AU communities. But I can't, so I don't.

 

[gregweller]

And every time I borrow the new Stephen King book from the library, I'm denying Mr. King a sale. So that's theft, too, right? And every time I buy a book and let someone else read it, I am denying the person that wrote that book a sale, as well. So that's theft, too.

 

[DaveStebbins]

Denying a sale is not theft. I could stand outside a store and warn people away because the owners were terrorists, child molestors, or worse, Auburn fans . That would deny them a few sales, but would not be theft.

Right. Except that in your first example (piracy) you end up in possession of commercial software which you didn't pay for. Your definition may be different than mine but, to my mind, if you possess (which excludes borrowing) a product which is for sale, but you didn't pay for it, that's theft. YMMV.

I agree with you on your other points (which is why I didn't quote them).

Sorry, Eric. I erased this reply once but, in the end, I truly believed it needed to be stated.

 

[herald]

And every time I borrow the new Stephen King book from the library, I'm denying Mr. King a sale. So that's theft, too, right?

Actually Your taxes paid for that book in the library.

 

[DMFTodd]

I'm a little confused, maybe someone can clarify.

Before CMP, there was PCGen. PCGen at that time was choke full of information from other sources which they freely distributed. The folks behind PCGen, as I remember it, said that this was all perfectly legal ("fair use" was the argument as I recall).

Then the PCGen folks moved over to CMP and the sharing of data files is now theft.

Did something change or am I not recalling things correctly?

 

[DMFTodd]

Double post.

 

[Mynex]

I'm a little confused, maybe someone can clarify.

Before CMP, there was PCGen. PCGen at that time was choke full of information from other sources which they freely distributed. The folks behind PCGen, as I remember it, said that this was all perfectly legal ("fair use" was the argument as I recall).

Then the PCGen folks moved over to CMP and the sharing of data files is now theft.

Did something change or am I not recalling things correctly?

First off, you're mixing a few things that don't relate.

1) PCGen data files at the time (of WotC's materials) were under Fair Use from PCGen's perspective (as well as our lawyers). WotC disagreed, and instead of fighting it out in court (as noted many times, fighting WotC on anything is monumentally expensive), and due to some other considerations, PCGen decided to go OGL AND d20 license legitimate.

2) At the time, no one was making data sets for sale under any license agreement. I could be wrong at that, I don't recall for sure, but I don't think you (DM Familiar) or Twin Rose (CS) had started doing that yet... But I do know that NO ONE had a license with WotC for their material - hell, eTools had _just_ been released at GenCon and ONLY covered the core 3 books at the time and that was a WotC product.

3) CMP came well after PCGen went OGL/D20... 7 months or thereabouts... The 2 are only related in the aspect of three of us that worked on PCGen own CMP and the fact that both produce data sets for PCGen (CMP Licensed, PCGen OGL)

So Todd, instead of trying to rehash old issues, and incorrectly at that, how about you go through all the effort that we did as CMP to secure a license with WotC, how about you go through the man hours of work to create the data sets from scratch, the coding that was needed, and then have people spread those files across Kazaa/personal web space/etc and then come tell me that's not theft.

You get those files illegaly and don't pay for the hard work that went into creating those data files and if you distribute said material on peer to peer, personal web space, etc,, you're stealing from the people that did do that hard work as well as from WotC. Pure and simple.

Slice it any way you want to, unless you have the money and you're willing to go to court and justify/convince a judge that it's not stealing, then there is no debate. I'd recommend to anyone that doesn't agree with this point of view to get yourself a software lawyer and ask them... Most of them will give you a free consultation as well, or at least answer your question over the phone.