File-Sharing: Has it affected the RPG industry?

[Dr. Harry]

Dr. Harry--where are you from? I'm also in academia (administration) here in TX.

Where I'm from? Long Story.

Where I'm at? Kingsville - 45 mi SW of Corpus Christi, assuming that Corpus Christi still exists after last night's storms.

How 'bout you?

 

[WizarDru]

Well, one of the points of this thread is that people had radically different ideas of what is "cheating", and what is "acceptable". After all, I note that you qualified your statement to say "in any real sense", a nice fuzzy phrase that can conceal a variety of sins.

Well I used that because, AFAIK, none of my friends actually did cheat. At least, certainly not on exams or tests of any stripe. When I went to school, the web was not available to distribute term papers and tests, for example. They certainly didn't openly brag about doing so, and showed no inclination for it. The "in any real sense" is to indicate that maybe they borrowed an answer for an assignment that was late when they were in a rush, although I'm not aware of it. But I know for a fact there wasn't any shortcutting on lab experiments, accounting work and the like.

Now, the only take-home exams I took, and they were few, were clearly meant as over-glorified research reports, and usually required you to show your work whenever possible...but the 'rules of the game' so to speak, were always made quite clear. And further, cheating didn't help you much, when you had 10-week quarters, semi-finals every third week, and classes that assumed you'd absorbed and mastered previous material. Of course, that may have accounted for the 50% freshman drop-out rate.

I'm curious as to what constitutes cheating on a take-home exam, for example. Were these essay questions that were copied, or just multiple choice answers that several people all got exactly wrong (which isn't to say I think they weren't cheating...I'm really just curious)?

 

[Prest0]

How 'bout you?

College Station

 

[Dr. Harry]

I'm curious as to what constitutes cheating on a take-home exam, for example. Were these essay questions that were copied, or just multiple choice answers that several people all got exactly wrong (which isn't to say I think they weren't cheating...I'm really just curious)?

These were problem-based physics tests. I was trying to use take-homes because for the summer semesters everything is so compressed that in-class tests are hard to schedule and harder to do for the student that has had less time to do the recommended problems. Becasue I was aware that the students considered the school to have something of a reputation as a place where cheating went on, I made three versions of the same test. When someone took test "C" and gave me all the answers for test "A", I knew there was a problem. When two exams showed *exactly* the same work, including repeating mis-spellings, dead ends, and *doodles*, I knew something was wrong. I also realize that this underrepresents the prevalence of cheating, as it only required some fairly elementary techniques to avoid being caught.

Sigh. This is why I don't keep a bottle of Scotch in my desk at work.

 

[Dr. Harry]

College Station

Ah, so we're in the same system. What's it like to actually get support from the state?

 

[Thanatos]

I'm sorry, but my opinion is that you are either using faulty logic or basing it on a faulty premise.

Lets break it down.

...He did lose more than $1200. Based on repeat openings,

Basis on 'repeat' openings is faulty. If you claim 'loss of sale' you don't get to make that claim everytime the infringer opens the product. The RIAA does not claim based on 'repeat' listening to an illegally downloaded MP3. It just doesn't hold up in any kind of business model profit/loss or supply/demand model I am familiar with.

he's got a lost of 1200 people with stable IP addresses. That right there alone represents the willingness to steal $14,000, not a mere $1200.

Define a stable IP address? In a world of either dynamic or static ip addresses where people can often have both, you can't qualify that 1 ip address = 1 person. At my home, I have 1 dynamic ip address for my laptop (wireless) and one static for it (switch connection) and another static for my gaming pc. That's 3 and I am 1 person. I often use multiple combinations to obtain some download. I know many, many computer people that have at least 3 IP addresses and do things with a similiar methodology to mine. This also is simply not a valid way to determine actual loss.

Publishers only hurt themselves by trying to quantify how many downloads would have represented buyers, since that relies on the false justifications that the thieves offer up as an excuse for their activities.

I agree with you here that trying to use ambigious statistics to quantify and claim loss only generates public/user resentment and in the end, hurts themselves.

The RIAA/MPAA are excellent examples of using misleading statistics to get legislation passed for their own ends. If they spent half the money they are spending on lawyers to come up with a new business/distribution model, that whole fiasco would probably be right back where it was 10 years ago.

 

[Umbran]

What I cannot agree with is the leap that the author loses nothing if the material is stolen, er, downloaded, by someone who "wouldn't have bought the product anyway."

Let's say my left hand gets chopped off in a tragic accident involving sliced cheese and a copy of the Styx "Crystal Ball" album. Have I now lost my chance to become a lead violinist in the New York Philharmonic?

No, because I don't play a violin, I never had a chance. You cannot lose that which you never could have had.

Now, perhaps some other party is somehow responsible for this accident. This person has done me wrong, and I may sue. But I cannot list the income I would have gotten from the New York Philharmonic when I seek damages.

The thing is, that folks who have illegal copies of pdfs (or mp3s, or whatever) are inviolation of the law. Yes, they have stolen. But not every theft represents an economic loss.

If a thief breaks into a bookstore and steals merchandise, has the thief only stolen a value equal to what the thief could have paid for? The most apparent difference between this case and the cases being discussed is that the material stolen has definite physical reality, but shouldn't that just be changed to the price of printing the books, in this view?

Not quite. We have to be careful when we make analogies between theft of physical products and theft of information.

If someone sneaks into a warehouse and steals a radio, it is clear that the manufacturer cannot now make a profit from selling that particular radio, and so suffers a loss.

If someone sneaks into a bookstore and walks out with a tome, likewise, since that physical object now cannot be sold, the retailer suffers a loss.

But, let's say someone sneaks into the bookstore with a battery-powered photocopier, their own toner, and a bunch of paper. They photocopy the book and put the original on the shelf in as close to mint condition as anyone could ever tell. He leaves with only the copy. The retailer can still sell that book! Which means that figuring out exactly how much was lost becomes a bit less straightforward. A game of "what if?"

If the theif walks out and immediately burns the copy, the merchant has lost nothing. If the theif walks out, and starts selling cut-rate copies of the book, the merchant has lost much more than the value of one copy. The actual loss incurred can lie anywhere in a spectrum from zero to something very high, depending on circumstances.

I don't see the moral high ground to downloading for free what normally has a price.

For the record, I don't discuss the "loss of sale" issue to establish moral high ground for the theif. We have copyrights in order to protect the economic well-being of those who create new intellectual structures. If we want to have sane copyright laws, we must be accurate and honest about the economics of data theft. If we only have a naive estimate of the losses, we will also have naive rules, and they won't work well. Rather like what we have today.

There seems to be a perception that the individual has a genuine right to have access to material produced by a second party, and if the work is unavailable (by being OOP)...

In the case of out of print material, the owner of the rights does not allow me the opportunity to give them anything for their work. It becomes a bit sticky to argue that an illegal copy causes a loss when the owner wasn't accepting money in the first place. Again, it is the owner's right to publisht he work or not. It would be illegal for me to copy it, even if they don't publish. But since they aren't making money off it, and in fact refuse to make money off it, how can a copy for personal use cause them an economic loss?

There are reasons to consider such copying a bit of a loss, actually, but evaluating how much of a loss there is becomes hairy.

What is the "right" someone has to someone else's work?

Good question.

Imagine that after the aforementioned tragic accident in which I lost my left hand, I then use the Styx CD to save the life of George RR Martin. And, in gratitude, he gives me the rights to the current "Song of Fire and Ice" books. Because I am either a jerk or an idiot, or both, I allow them to go out of print, and refuse to print new copies. Legally, such is my right. Nothing you can do to stop me, so there, nyah.

So, legally, I'm in the right. But morally? I'm dong a bit of a disservice to Mr. Martin, who isn't yet finished with the series. I'm doing a disservice to those who haven't yet read all of what has already been published. And so on. Whle my legal rights are not questionable, the morality of my position is not exactly grand. The moral position of those who thwart me is somewhat better then, no?

Which goes to show - legal rights and moral high ground are not necessarily linked. We prefer to have our laws coincide with solid morals and ethics, but this is not always possible.

 

[The Sigil]

I'm curious as to what constitutes cheating on a take-home exam, for example. Were these essay questions that were copied, or just multiple choice answers that several people all got exactly wrong (which isn't to say I think they weren't cheating...I'm really just curious)?

I actually had some take-home exams in college... the professor gave us the exams and said, "you may use ANY resource to complete these exams except for professors in this university's physics department. That means you can use TA's, grad students, each other, the book, professors in other universities, etc."

I actually thought that pretty clearly spelled out what would be cheating - and made it easy for him to check on (by asking around at faculty meetings). I actually had a friend that was a physics professor at USC that I COULD have gone to, but I just got together with some of my classmates over the weekend and we collaborated to solve the problems ourselves. Since our professor explicitly said we could use each other to solve the problems, I did.

The problem, IMO, is that there are lots of resources out there, and it's hard for most people to differentiate which resources are "cheating" and which are not without a list of "allowed" or "forbidden" resources. This does not mean I think "copying verbatim" is okay - it's plaigarism and/or copyright infringement... but if I am told, "your research problem is X" I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect the student to make use of all resources available - including the internet - in his research unless he is specifically given a list of "allowed" or "forbidden" resources. *Not* to copy from, but at least gain guidance as to how to approach the problem. But then, the first lesson that I was taught in our physics curriculum in college was, "a good physicist doesn't memorize thousands tables and formulae. A good physicist knows what book to look them up in so he can spend his time working on actual problems. Storing tables and formulae is the reason for books and computers and such - so we don't have to."

Interestingly, I am told that one of the more "in vogue" cheating methods employed in college today is the use of cell phones with text messaging and/or cameras... the "first student in" to a test takes a picture of the test and/or text messages back and forth with his buddies to get the answers. These technological abilities didn't even exist 3-4 years ago.

--The Sigil

 

[Lazybones]

I was a TA at a University of California campus for five years, and an instructor at various state and community colleges for four more years after that.

Cheating is an endemic problem. I worked at several schools where the faculty had stopped assigning take-home exams and/or papers because it was just too much of a hassle. Depending on your dean, it could be virtually impossible to discipline a student for cheating. I was lucky in that most deans would back me up, but as I was an adjunct with virtually no standing, I had to document EVERYTHING in detail (it got to where I would photocopy dozens of papers each term as part of my investigations).

I caught numerous students by simply doing a google search. Take four uncommon words in sequence from a student's paper, put them in quotes, and search.

One student turned in a paper on the book we'd used the previous semester (we were using a different book for the current term).

I caught two young ladies when one turned in both her paper and her friend's together; they were virtually identical. Apparently the friend had asked student #1 to turn in her paper for her; she did, but only after copying large parts of it into her own work.

I would often create make-up quizzes where the questions were moved around, and sometimes would get them back where the answers were in the correct order--for the original version of the test.

I miss teaching, but cheating was a pain in the ass to deal with. Still, it was amusing to see how stupid some of the students could be in their attempts. I'm sure there were many more who were at least moderately clever and were never detected.

 

[WizarDru]

In the case of out of print material, the owner of the rights does not allow me the opportunity to give them anything for their work. It becomes a bit sticky to argue that an illegal copy causes a loss when the owner wasn't accepting money in the first place. Again, it is the owner's right to publisht he work or not. It would be illegal for me to copy it, even if they don't publish. But since they aren't making money off it, and in fact refuse to make money off it, how can a copy for personal use cause them an economic loss?

There are reasons to consider such copying a bit of a loss, actually, but evaluating how much of a loss there is becomes hairy.

Another well thought out, as usual. I pretty much agree with most of what you're saying. One thing that should be pointed out though is a question of future use of material.

To wit: when MAME came out, people quickly began creating ROM files of classic arcade games so that they could play them. Naturally, most folks no longer had legitimate copies of some of these games, and many had NEVER had legitimate copies of them. (I mean, how many people owned a Zaxxon Arcade machine?) One often quoted reason for ripping and distributing the ROMs was that it was 'abandonware' and that they were actually preserving the games for history.

Except that many if not most of these games had legal rights holders who didn't like that the games were being distributed that way. In some cases, because they had already begun work on updates to these intellectual properties, such as Frogger, Defender and so on. In other cases, they actually were intending on rereleasing the games with an emulator to work on modern systems. In either case, the fact that the publishers had not yet released the games didn't mean they didn't intend to, or that they didn't have worth. It's even possible that some were waiting to generate more demand for their product. How much money did they loose to MAME? We have no way of knowing if they lost a dime...but I'd wager that some folks got their nostalgia fill prior to their releasal, and that may have lost them some sales. Now one could also argue that MAME itself generated that demand...and they might be right. Hairy, as you said.

Now, I'd love if Disney would realease Gargoyles on DVD. They haven't, and haven't even mentioned thinking about it. Coincidentally, they just started rerunning the show in syndication on ABC Family Channel. Did the widespread presence of these episodes as mpegs on certain DC hubs lower the value of the sale to syndication, or prevent their releasal on DVD? Highly unlikely. I would guess that the success or failure of the Batman Animated Series DVDs later this year will have a much bigger determinant in the releasal of Gargoyles to DVD than an act of piracy ever would. (and, of course, there's the issue of 'fair use'. Gargoyles was broadcast over the open airwaves...if folks are sharing it for free on the 'net, is it a bad thing?)

It's a slippery slope, to be sure, and IANAL.

Oh, and Lazybones and Dr. Harry? That's a damn shame.