File-Sharing: Has it affected the RPG industry?

[Yair]

In a world where theft of IP is legal, there is no economic incentive to disseminate IP, only altruistic ones, and very few people are prepared to produce IP exclusively for altruistic reasons. Artists, authors, designers, etc. all have to eat, clothe themselves, house themselves.

Consider the academin world, where plagarism is a virtue and IP is unheared of. It has existed for hundreds of years and produced a fair amount of quality IP, thank you.
Preservation of IP is not the only model to feed yourself. In a world without IP, other institutions could be established to support its production - from the patronage of the wealthy to trust funds.
I do not think, however, anyone is seriously contending that IP should not be preserved; it is just that IP should not be draconically enforced or extended. Even in a world where file-sharing was perfectly legal, I am certain there will be lots of people that will prefer to purchase the books, and others who would be willing to pay for the pdfs (even when they can download them legally for free). And if the circustances were right, there would be others still that would be willing to set up funds to the support of the production of IP (for a similar real-world example, see strange horizons ).
To a large degree, we lived in such a world for a time - a world where file-sharing was illegal, but not punished. To a large degree we still do.

That is not to say I am not sorry people are not getting paid for their hard work in producing the IP. Some way or another, they need to get paid for producing IP or they will indeed slow down if not stop completely.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

My "FLGS" is 2 hours drive away, in the center of the largest city in the country. That's 4 hours + parking + lots of hussle to visit.

Boo hoo. When I got into gaming, I lived in Denver. A couple of months later, I moved to Manhattan...Manhattan, Kansas, pop. 10,000. I could go to the KSU bookstore and buy the DMG, PHB, & MM and Dragon Magazine. Anything else I wanted I had to go to Kansas City to get, and we could only make that trip 1/month. (Yes, barefoot over mountains through snow fighting off cyborg-demon alligators ) The only reason I played Traveller or Star Fleet Battles was because I had a buddy (named Buddy) who already had the games when he moved into town.

As for music - for some brands I am not paying, yes; I do not believe this hurts the artists or producers, as I believe they have made a fair profit of it already. That has nothing to do with "paying for work they can download freely", it has to do with "paying for work that has already been paid for". (For the record: in practice I often do purchase music that I like; it's just that I don't think I really should - I do so because I am lazy, not because I think it is right. I think it is wrong.)

You don't believe you're hurting the artists so its OK? They've already been paid enough so its OK? Other people already paid for it so its OK? How arbitrary is that?

As one of my law profs would say, "That doesn't even pass a sniff test."

What you believe is not backed up by empirical evidence. Artists who don't make expected sales are in trouble. If INSERT NAME OF BAND HERE doesn't cover the expenses of producing its album and whatever videos are made, that band gets a smaller budget next time around, or gets dropped. In fact, if sales are miserable enough, the band will not recoup its costs, and will wind up owing the record company money. That happened to Mark Sandman's first band, Treat Her Right. His second band Morphine, did much better, but produced only a handful of videos because they never sold enough to warrant the record company taking that risk. Did you or anyone you know download Morphine's stuff?

What other products do you treat this way? "GM has already made enough money from its Pontiac Ram Air Firebird, so I'll take that one." "I don't need a ticket to see this movie because its already set a box office record." "Doctor, you've already seen a whole bunch of patients this year, so I'm not paying your bill." Just because the harm may be relatively small does not mean it is nonexistent or justified. See my first post about Kant.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Consider the academin world, where plagarism is a virtue and IP is unheared of. It has existed for hundreds of years and produced a fair amount of quality IP, thank you.
Preservation of IP is not the only model to feed yourself. In a world without IP, other institutions could be established to support its production - from the patronage of the wealthy to trust funds.

I have freinds who teach. I have family who teach. Plagiarism is NOT a virtue. It is, in some places, grounds for dismissal from the school.

IP is the bread and butter of professors who must "publish or perish." You steal their IP and publish it before they can, they lose their jobs because then THEY look like the plagiarists.

Patronage of the wealthy as a support model got you some amazing art...of whatever the patron wanted. If the Church (THE major patron of the middle ages) said "Paint angels" you painted angels. Protected IP at least allowed creators to control what they were creating.

The closest thing to a trust fund in the USA is the NEA, and you've seen how well THAT works over the past 10 years. The only good, supported art is that which passes conservative muster. Nothing challenging the status quo will ever come out of the NEA as long as there is a morality board overseeing the process.

Holland also attempted to subsidize art. At one time (I don't have current data) you could apply to be a Nationally Accredited Artist for Holland by applying and paying a fee. You got a salary in exchange for producing a number of pieces per year as determined by your favored medium. Result-warehouses of really crummy art that will never see the light of day.

Under a free-market stystem, the creator of IP is free to produce whatever he wants and the public is free to not buy it if they think its worthless. But they need to have their IP protected against misappropriation of all forms.

Here is something to consider. No one sane takes efforts to acquire something they feel is worthless. Someone acquiring illegal downloads values those downloads, even if it is $0.01. If it is of value, the producer needs to be compensated. If it is valueless to you-leave it alone and don't download it.

Perhaps a happy medium for the Internet Age is releasing samples for people to judge the work. Send the seller a bid of sufficient value, and he sends you the rest, kind of like an auction.

I'll say this, though- auctions tend to lead to higher prices than competition.

Even in a world where file-sharing was perfectly legal, I am certain there will be lots of people that will prefer to purchase the books, and others who would be willing to pay for the pdfs (even when they can download them legally for free).

I know I don't tend to pay for things I have gotten for free, and I get free stuff (legally) all the time.

But, I may be the exception. Perhaps someone should do a poll.

"Do you pay creators for things that you can get for free on the internet?"

Wait! The RIAA already has data on that, and the majority of material initially downloaded for free is NEVER paid for in any form.

To be fair, that IS the music industry, a well-known sea of sharks (it REALLY is).

Perhaps our hobby has more ethical types. But people are people, so why should it be that ...um...the ethics of downloading differ between IP fields?

 

[Yair]

Boo hoo. When I got into gaming, I lived in Denver. A couple of months later, I moved to Manhattan...Manhattan, Kansas, pop. 10,000. I could go to the KSU bookstore and buy the DMG, PHB, & MM and Dragon Magazine. Anything else I wanted I had to go to Kansas City to get, and we could only make that trip 1/month. (Yes, barefoot over mountains through snow fighting off cyborg-demon alligators ) The only reason I played Traveller or Star Fleet Battles was because I had a buddy (named Buddy) who already had the games when he moved into town.



You don't believe you're hurting the artists so its OK? They've already been paid enough so its OK? Other people already paid for it so its OK? How arbitrary is that?

As one of my law profs would say, "That doesn't even pass a sniff test."

What you believe is not backed up by empirical evidence. Artists who don't make expected sales are in trouble. If INSERT NAME OF BAND HERE doesn't cover the expenses of producing its album and whatever videos are made, that band gets a smaller budget next time around, or gets dropped. In fact, if sales are miserable enough, the band will not recoup its costs, and will wind up owing the record company money. That happened to Mark Sandman's first band, Treat Her Right. His second band Morphine, did much better, but produced only a handful of videos because they never sold enough to warrant the record company taking that risk. Did you or anyone you know download Morphine's stuff?

What other products do you treat this way? "GM has already made enough money from its Pontiac Ram Air Firebird, so I'll take that one." "I don't need a ticket to see this movie because its already set a box office record." "Doctor, you've already seen a whole bunch of patients this year, so I'm not paying your bill." Just because the harm may be relatively small does not mean it is nonexistent or justified. See my first post about Kant.

I know all about Kant.
And no other products.

I am not saying it works in general, I am saying it works for me. And again, this applies only when there is NO hurt to the artist - I do not consider LACK of sales of the truly successful artists a hurt, they have earned enough money to keep doing art for the rest of their lives unless they lead them excessively.
I am not taking their money, their goods, or their time. I am just making a copy of something they have already made. Electronic goods are special this way.

Of course your law professor would smirk at it. At no point did I claim this mindset would be acceptable in any legal system whatsoever.

It is extremely arbitrary, but it isn't unfair. Not as far as I am concertned, anyways. These people already got what they derserve; anything else is sheer greed. And I am not taking anything from them, just copying something without any material loss to them.
And again - when there is doubt, I do purchase.

Suppose GM did make enough profit from the Firebird - above and beyond the profit I consider reasonable. And suppose I could take one from the company lot, before it was delivered through middle-men.
Would taking it be illegal? Certainly.
Would it be morally wrong, if I need a car? I believe not (I know most will differ). The car is there, the benefit to its current owner I consider to be negative (sinful, remember?), the benefit for me will be positive (I NEED a car), where is the harm? In taking away the rights of property? Sorry, like all rights I believe they should be restricted. If there is pressing need for someone else, and little to no benefit to the current owner, I do believe it is just to take property. (So do most people; I am just more relaxed about it - the old "steal to feed the hungry" shtick).

Now the fact is GM is NOT making an unreasonable profit from the Firebird. Excessive profit is excessive by an order of magnitude - if, for example, I would find out that GM is making 700% profit on each car sold, then maybe I'll say it is excessive. I do not believe this is the situation.

Compare with Ms. Spears. She already made more than 150K from the record; I consider a reasonable pay for time spent perhaps 60K. Me downloading it will cost her nothing (unlike the production cost of the lost Firebird). With all due respect, I am not about to feel bad about downloading it.

But this argument is getting out of hand; this is not the topic of this thread, and I am quite aware I will not convince anyone in my rather esotetic views on morality.
I do not wish to continue debating this point; I do not feel it is conductive to this thread.

 

[James Heard]

The Public domain isn't being strangled. The Public domain is constantly increasing in size, daily. Once something falls into the public domain, it can NEVER be copyrighted again.

At a much decreased rate thanks to the constant extensions and self-serving legislations that narrow it. I don't know what important point you were trying to make with the emphasis on the not being able to copyright the public domain. That's the entire point isn't it? To move the intellectual into a format that makes it reusable as reinterpretation by society at large as quickly as possible while still balancing a short term of monopoly to fund the creative process? It's not a way to print money and it shouldn't be a squatter's market thanks to the economic needs of a few of the most wealthy IP holders. Neither my daughter or my granddaughter needs nor deserves to make money off the sale of my IP, and even I myself would be better off serving the public domain by being rationed in my ability to make money off of my own works. So you've got a trickle of content dripping into the public domain, so what? That's better than stifling creativity with IP lawyers entirely?

As for its affect on creativity- like it though I do- the OGL has probably stifled creativity more than it has stimulated it. Sure, there are plenty of D20 based games out there, but they're all D20 games.

I disagree with this entirely. The different substructures may have changed but there is still an awful lot more individual products on the shelves and available than even 6 years ago. The fact that there are a lot of d20 games out there is more of a function of entrance costs, control and quality. If White Wolf were to open up the Storyteller system in a similar sense I imagine that they too would see a similar jump in Storyteller products on the shelves. I remember when licencing (I assume) was cheaply available in the early 80s for gaming products and there were dozens of associated lines adding into Traveller and D&D via Judge's Guild and other tiny presses. MP3.Com had more artists out there than you'd EVER see in a big label catalog, because while the problems with distribution are different the effect is similar - there is absolutely no shortage of monkeys willing to create and share their efforts, only an artificial barrier to commerce built by the various entertainment industries by their own sabotage of efforts they don't control and judicious usage of copyright law to maintain as high of a wall around the elite club where the money is as possible. The monopoly of copyright, built to serve the public, now serves the wealthy few who can hope to influence and maintain as rabid protections as possible. The entire dialogue with the original intent is false now, people function as if copyright were something given to the public by the creators instead of something that the public grants to the artist. That was not the intent and it's wrong to legislate as if it were.

 

[Yair]

I have freinds who teach. I have family who teach. Plagiarism is NOT a virtue. It is, in some places, grounds for dismissal from the school.

You are correct, of course, I should have been more precise.
IP is NOT reserved in the academic world; attributing it is. If I publish an article on general relativity, no one should quote it and say its his work. But if someome quotes it and says it is my work - all is fine.

Patronage of the wealthy as a support model got you some amazing art...of whatever the patron wanted. If the Church (THE major patron of the middle ages) said "Paint angels" you painted angels. Protected IP at least allowed creators to control what they were creating.

Correct. I never said it was a perfect model, I said there are other models. Pretending that the only possbile model is IP-protection is folly.
And for the record, I do not believe IP-protection allows artists to control what they are creating. They still get paid by patrons; it is just that in our times the patrons are more intersted in selling the artist's goods to the public, and so the nature of the works has changed.

The closest thing to a trust fund in the USA is the NEA, and you've seen how well THAT works over the past 10 years. The only good, supported art is that which passes conservative muster. Nothing challenging the status quo will ever come out of the NEA as long as there is a morality board overseeing the process.

I wouldn't know; what is the NEA? (not american, here)

I know I don't tend to pay for things I have gotten for free, and I get free stuff (legally) all the time.

But, I may be the exception. Perhaps someone should do a poll.

"Do you pay creators for things that you can get for free on the internet?"

Wait! The RIAA already has data on that, and the majority of material initially downloaded for free is NEVER paid for in any form.

To be fair, that IS the music industry, a well-known sea of sharks (it REALLY is).

Perhaps our hobby has more ethical types. But people are people, so why should it be that ...um...the ethics of downloading differ between IP fields?

I do not believe most people will pay for what they are getting for free, nor did I suggest it.
I simply noted that I and others DO pay for some products we can get for free, and pointed out that there are organizations that provide free services with voluntary costs.
I DID state the people should be rewarded for their work, and without it IP development would slow down.
My only goal in my post was to clarify that in a world where IP-theft is legal there will still be economic reasons to produce IP, not just altruism, and that economical institutions that encourage IP production can be established on a basis that is not IP-protection. That is all.

As for auctioning - an interesting idea. I think it impractical, however - surely WotC could not haggle with every customer that wants to purchase the PH.
Again, I am not advocating any reform in any economical system, nor did I attempt to claim that supply and demand should be repalced by another system. I think it is the best of all possible evils - much like democracy. I simply attempted to note that in a world devoid of IP-protection there will still be economic incentive to produce IP.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I honestly see little or nothing that Disney, Time-Warner, Haliburton, Sony, WalMart, or other megacorporations--the sort with the power to push gov'ts around--has done that is a massive good, or necessary to society. Feel free to enlighten me--i could very well be overlooking things, due to ignorance of the accomplishments, or the accomplishers, that would change my POV on the matter.

Honestly? Nothing?

I can only imagine you don't know because you don't bother to find out, because of your bias against corporations. Google for "[company name here] charitable contributions" and away you go.

http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/newsbyid.asp?id=13326

Here's a larger list for the intellectually lazy. Lots of telecom and oil "demons" on that list.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2078472/


Need we mention Rockefeller and Carnegie?

But let's talk about your favorite target. One (just one) of Hasbro's charities is "Operation Smile." The operation to repair a cleft palate costs as little as $700. A pittance to Hasbro, a world of difference to children in poor countries.

http://www.operationsmile.org/

Boundless Playgrounds is a pretty cool Hasbro charity, too. They build equal access playgrounds for children with disabilities to play alongside other children of all abilities.

http://www.boundlessplaygrounds.org/

Hasbro's corporate culture is extraordinarily civic minded. Employees are given paid leave for charitable work, and Hasbro matches all employee charitable contributions dollar for dollar.

If large corps used their economies of scale to raise wages, rather than lower prices, i'd be much mor sympathetic, frex.

If corporations strive to lower prices, your wages go further.

Wulf

 

[Yair]

Honestly? Nothing?

[snip a lot of good deeds]

Wulf

I agree that megacorporations often do good stuff. It is just that very often they do harm, or do self-serving "good acts" (like nikey contributing to sports - but only when its logo is prominent). I believe this results in a general resentment against megacorporations, which is not entirely unjustified.

The mere size of a company is not to be held against it. However, I tend to think of it like one of the "seven deadly sins": none of them were actual SINS, let alone things you ought to die for. Rather, they were seen as atitudes that will LEAD to sin. Likewise, being huge tends, I believe, to encourage "wrong" corporate behaviour, but is not an indication thereof.

[Edited to remove needless bashing.]

 

[WayneLigon]

Really, though, the contorted logic and weird nitpicking semantics in this thread that are used for justifications for people's theft is just amazing to watch.

 

[Yair]

On the planet I live on, that's still stealing. Interesting that you keep bringing up the 'sin' of it, since the last time I looked it read 'Thou Shalt Not Steal', not, 'thou shalt not steal except in these circumstances, which are blah blah blah.'

Really, though, the contorted logic and weird nitpicking semantics in this thread that are used for justifications for people's theft is just amazing to watch. Yair's is just the most blatent example.

Thanks.
I was going to write a reply to that, but on second thought I deleted it. Your bashing of my moral views really has nothing to do with the thread at large; it's highjacking, and I hate that.
So you know what? You're right. I'm wrong. Can we move on now?