File-Sharing: Has it affected the RPG industry?

[Calico_Jack73]

I think a big increase in battery technology (or decrease in power consumption) will likely have to happen to ultimately push this technology "over the top" in terms of widespread public acceptance.

Great post Lazybones! I just thought you might be interested that I read an article in Scientific American yesterday that brought up the idea of using Hydrogen Fuel Cell technology in consumer electronic devices such as laptops. Perhaps we'll get away from batteries altogether.

 

[Umbran]

Without waxing too political here, I fear that - though infringers themselves probably don't understand why they feel the way that they do - this hideously long copyright terms are the problem. Hideously long copyright terms are the result of the "content publishing" industry. In other words, the destruction of industry you speak of is the direct result of the actions taken by the industry itself - by extending copyright terms to unreasonable durations, they have, in effect, killed the golden goose that is the public's goodwill and readiness to tolerate copyright in exchange for the promise of the flow of ideas and entertainment to the masses.

I dont' think this is a very storong argument, for a couple of reasons...

First and foremost, I doubt that the majority of Americans even know how long a copyright lasts. If I'm correct, they cannot really be resentful about it, now can they? They can't go seeking revenge for that which they don't recognize as a wrong done unto them. While some activists may think this way, the general public really isn't that knowlegeable or long-sighted on the subject.

Next, the logic doesn't hold for new releases. Surely, the original author deserves some length of time in which their work is protected from theft, so that they can make at least some money from it. Any work that is still under what folks would call a copyright of reasonable length shoudl still be reasonably clear of piracy. If what you say is correct, we should see more copyright infringement of older works.

Simply put - folks ticked off at how long copyrights are should not be stealling stuff released this very year. But, oddly, I expect it is the newest stuff that gets stolen.

I severely doubt that the pervasiveness of copyright infringement is based upon such high ideology as this. It's basic greed - everyone likes getting something for nothing.

 

[Lazybones]

I think more people are willing to pirate because they view the corporations as greedy, immoral organizations. For example, the popular perception (whether or not it's true) is that the media companies screw their "talent" (i.e. the producers of content) as much as they do the consumers. I don't have stats to back this up but I believe I've read that most musicians signed with labels get about 8 cents for every dollar in sales. From what I've heard even many big bands recoup little on their record deals and make most of their money off of concerts and touring. I don't know what it is for authors; I'll check and see if I can find more info.

This is why I think direct distribution is a good alternative, as it would allow producers to keep more of what their product earns. I know that the number of sales would be less without the huge distribution machines pushing content, but I'd rather see more content choices available out there, rather than having a few cookie-cutter musicians and authors shoved aggressively at me by the media industries. Plus it would make it easier for more producers to get into the distribution stream and at least have a shot at selling something. I don't think anyone would dispute that having Clear Channel dominate the nation's radio, for instance, has greatly reduced the amount of variety in playlists in the last five years or so.

Note that I offer none of this as a justification of copyright infringement (let's call it by its real name, shall we, instead of the colorful "piracy" and the misleading "theft"). But many people do feel that current copyright law is out of hand and counter to the initial purpose of such legislation (to promote science and the general knowledge of society while giving authors a chance to recoup some benefit from their work).

 

[JingJang]

This is a good thread - I'm usually a lurker but this one "brought me out of my shell".

I am involved in three different games, and we play faily regularly. There is SO much stuff (much of it good and some not so good), that even playing three times a week for several hours - it would take years to wade through all of the material out there. (BTW I don't play three times a week for several hours, although I might if I had the time ) I have a TON of PDF's and honestly, I'm sure I'll never use all of them. Of the newer "illegal" copies, ALL of the PDF's I have downloaded and used I have bought. I do have a bunch of newer PDF's that I have not bought, but I have not yet had occansion to use them so I "hoard" them on my hard drive until they might prove useful. (Then, if they do, they get bought).
Most of the PDF's I have downloaded are older out of print modules and accesories. These, due to their size and the difficulty in finding them, I tend to print locally if I am going to use them.

I do not know if it applies to the RGP industry, but I know in cartographic publishing when a map goes out of print, it is no longer under copyright. You can make all of the legal copies of out of print maps you want. (I worked for a good sized map publisher and sold copyrights for several years). It would seem to make sense in the world of RPG's but I do not know if that is the case.

So I guess I am in the group of people that would say that filesharing has helped the industry - at least from the standpoint of the 11 people in the three groups of which I am a part of. We all have downloaded material and honestly, almost everything we have used, each of us also have hardcopies which we bought. Furthermore, we have ended up with books I know we would not have bought if we didn't have the PDF for previews.

As for PDF products to begin with: As far as I am concerned, if I downloaded it via filesharing first and ended up using it, I went ahead and paid for it legitimately. However, that said, I don't think I'm the norm in this regard. Also, to repeat what many have said here, I love the "feel" of the book in my hands. Even though I know there are many great PDF products out there I only have 5 that I have paid for because I have only used those. (I have other "illegal" copies but I have not yet used them so I am not counting those - and again, if I use them, I'll go out there and pay for them).

Finally, for the record I agree with those here suggesting a more direct method of distribution. (In fact, I believe this is the heart of this issue, in all of the mediums in which filesharing is effecting.) With the access their consumers have to the internet, corperations that are in the business of distrubution realize they can be very easily replaced. There is no need for corperate "middle-men/distributors" because word-of-mouth is now more powerful than ever (and growing more so). I don't mind my local gaming store getting a cut, but otherwise, I want the rest of the profit going to the those who produced the product. I know this means my local shop may not have everything out there, but I'm willing to get on message boards and websites to see what products I have to have because everyone is talking about it. (And then go back to my local shop and have them get those products).

That's my two-cents

 

[drakhe]

Interesting point and then my 2 bits...

First of all an interesting point I noticed in this thread: If you could stop piracy instantly, the large majority of pirates would not buy the product anyway. This certainly questions the sanity of working against piracy.



It also forces you to start make distinctions! The above statement makes sense when talking about people who frequent sharing sites and download without giving anything in return.



But what about true sharers? Those that actually buy a book, maybe even a second copy they can cut up to make scanning easier, then spend hours OCR'ing and checking the file, create the PDF and then share it, with sole intent of being able to receive same from other sharers.



Then there is the true pirate (and to me the only class of person worth this name), those that will mass reproduce a book/cd/software/... and sell to unsuspecting (or not so unsuspecting) customers.



The first 2 categories don't account for much of the damage in my view, as these are the people who either won't ever buy or those in some way inhibited of buying a lot, but still have other resources that allow them to share. The latter (true pirate) are a double threat since not only do they make (some sort of) a profit the original writers/artists/... miss, but they also dump generally inferior product on the public (although, you could say most people buying a pirated copy would probably know the real price of a product, and therefore buy the pirated copy knowing they risk inferior quality)



Me, I buy my RPG books (I simply love books, I'll buy doubles of those books I actually use at the table so I can use and abuse them and still have a pristine copy in my library). I have downloaded PDF's, but only because the material was out-of-print (and could not be located at a CON or in a second-hand shop) or because I have the book and want to use it in electronic form (mostly to create handouts for players) and don't want to go through the scanning/cleanup process. I rarely "share" my material (actually, in a sense I [and basically all DM's] do by using material in my gaming sessions), because I believe everybody should at least go through the effort of acquiring something and I leave it to each individual’s discretion to buy or download.



So, my point: people's mentality will have to be changed. Some people will simply never put up the effort of actually buying (or at least looking for the item and downloading themselves), but to me, the worst are those that simply say: "I can't afford the book/cd/film/software, so I have a right to make a copy", and sadly I do know a couple.



Just a thought that might also have something to do with mentality (or rather an observation): When I was a kid (I'm 38 now) I saved up (sometimes for months) to get one book or one game and I felt good about getting it. And whatever I got to buy was treasured because of the effort needed to acquire it. Because I had to save for this one thing, I had to select very carefully, because if after some months of saving it turns out to be no good, it meant having to save up all over again. Nowadays, kids demand to have this or that and if you don't provide they make trouble. I've seen kids throw a tantrum over having to wait one day to have a book/cd/film/... and parents giving in to those tantrums. Even worse: kids nowadays seem to have ever shorter attention spans. Some time ago, while being over at a friends house for DnD, I noticed one of his kids: 5 minutes zapping in front of the TV, 6 minutes chatting on MSN, 9 minutes reading some book, some more zapping, playing with the cat for a couple of minutes... and this went on and on in that fashion. And when finally she wanted to go up to her room to listen to some music and needing some batteries for her radio, her father said he hadn't any and hey presto: tantrum time....

 

[MerakSpielman]

I agree with drakhe. Most pirates would not spend money on what they pirated in the first place. Statistics which measure the number of pirated copies of a work and then multiply that by the purchase price for the item in order to determine damage to a company are in error.

There are some people who know what they want, have the resources to purchase it, and instead make the decision to pirate it. This is pretty nasty behavior. But I believe quite strongly that these sorts of people are a tiny minority of people who pirate copyrighted material.

And, as drakhe says, the worst pirates are the ones who attempt to mass-produce and resell the product at a bargain price, undercutting the original company. This, by the way, is a good way of getting the Feds after you, and is the most damaging form of piracy.

There's also an increasing mentality among people who can't afford to purchase an item: "Why should I be denied the entertainment value of this item just because I lack the ability to pay for it? If I could pay for it I would, but I can't. My neighbor has more money and has this item, but I'm just as good a person as they are, so I deserve to enjoy this item too." People are measuring what entertainment they should have not on a basis of what they can afford, but on the basis of what they believe they deserve. Taken on a small scale this behavior is harmless - they couldn't afford the product in the first place, why does it matter to anybody if they get an illegal copy? But on a large scale it can become problematic. The reason we have low and high paying jobs is a matter of incentive. The basic concept is that people who work harder get payed more and deserve to have nicer stuff (arguing this point could quickly bring this thread into off-limits territory, so tread softly). If we can all have access to whatever luxuries we wish without paying for them, this particular incentive to work harder is removed.

There is a population of people who use pdfs who cannot afford to pay for them who subscribe to the philosophy in the first half of the preceeding paragraph. To them I say: When you make enough money to afford the books you have acquired illegally, will you then purchase them legally? Most of them would say yes, but when it comes down to it, they generally don't do so. By the time they can afford the books, they've already read them, used what ideas they wanted, and moved on to other things. Paying for them now feels like paying for a movie they snuck into months ago. Why bother, it's in the past?

 

[Henry]

First of all an interesting point I noticed in this thread: If you could stop piracy instantly, the large majority of pirates would not buy the product anyway. This certainly questions the sanity of working against piracy.

The Sigil brought this same point up as well, and I still have to admit, that as logic goes, this one is still escaping me. I must have a mental wall against this point, because it still doesn't make sense to me.

Here's my train of thought: If most people who download illegal copies wouldn't pay for it anyway if they couldn't download it, then they wouldn't have the product in possession. And that's perfectly OK.

Yet here they are, in possession of a copy. That's the part that doesn't add up if it's not a lost sale.

Why do they own the copy, if they do not wish to own it? It's not analogous to someone mailing it to them without their knowledge; it does take conscious and willing searching and acquisition. Therefore, if someone wouldn't want (and by extension, purchase) a copy if they were denied it otherwise, then why are they expending the effort in the first place?

I get on a dirt-basic level that the vendor won't be getting the money either way, but there's more to the picture than that. If one desires an item enough, one will obtain it, somehow, legally or illegally is up to the person. If one doesn't desire it enough, then one won't bother to obtain it, legally or otherwise. And the latter is OK - it's a founding law of commerce.

To want something, and NOT pay fair market value for it, and get it anyway? It does not to me add up to say that's not a "lost sale." It's kind of like leaving the equals sign, and still calling it an equation.

 

[drnuncheon]

Here's my train of thought: If most people who download illegal copies wouldn't pay for it anyway if they couldn't download it, then they wouldn't have the product in possession. And that's perfectly OK.

Yet here they are, in possession of a copy. That's the part that doesn't add up if it's not a lost sale.

Why do they own the copy, if they do not wish to own it?

I think that the part you're missing is they do not wish to own it at the price asked for it - but when they saw it sitting there for free, they took it because hey, why not? It doesn't cost them anything.

J

 

[Crothian]

Therefore, if someone wouldn't want (and by extension, purchase) a copy if they were denied it otherwise, then why are they expending the effort in the first place?

I think many people want it, but don't want to pay for it. And wouldn't pay for it. They might just download it for the sake of downloading it. I have friends with gigs of illegally gotten things that never use them, but the fact that it isn't that hard to aquire them makes them get them. It really is not that much of an effort.

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

The reason we have low and high paying jobs is a matter of incentive. The basic concept is that people who work harder get payed more and deserve to have nicer stuff (arguing this point could quickly bring this thread into off-limits territory, so tread softly).

(Treading softly.)

I think that is the point about copyrights and big businesses. People see these corporation CEOs and copyright owners that make obscene amounts of money, not because of hard work, but because somebody 50 years dead had a neat idea.

Makes those same people ask, "Well why the heck am I working so hard at $9 an hour when Cheesehead CEO has billions in stock options?

I can never be Cheesehead..."