File-Sharing: Has it affected the RPG industry?

[woodelf]

We, as a society, are still trying to figure out how to deal with the issue. So, memebers of an industry (like the RIAA), poke around. They get some estimates, and they go to Washington DC...

"We estimate that X songs were copied without a sale. If we had sold all those songs instead we would have made $Y more this year. Therefore, we have lost $Y in sales to this copying. Please pass a bill that will stop us from losing so much money."

However, the "if" in "If we had sold all those.." is a big one. As noted - not all those who copy would have bought if copying were not available. If we could turn back the clock and run the universe without this copying, the companies would get something notably less than $Y more in revenue.

I don't think anyone is saying that no sales are lost to copying. However, equating 1 copy to 1 sale lost is a naive estimate. It is a tool used by industried to over-represent their economic losses.

Another factor that may come into play is the very reputations of the music industry producers themselves. Frex, if a new group came out that i really liked, and they were released on the Sony label, i probably wouldn't buy it. I'm particularly pissed off at Sony right now for their stupid copy protection scheme that makes CDs unplayable in computers--for most of my CD-player-owning life, my only CD player has been a computer, and my primary CD player has always been my computer. But i've almost never ripped CDs i own--didn't even have the capability until a bit over a year ago--and the only time i've copied a few tracks off of them was for putting together a soundtrack for a game campaign. Making legitimate users unable to use your product in legitimate ways is not good copy protection. And the fact that it was so easily circumvented just makes it that much more ridiculous--now the legitimate user can't use the CD without doing something illegal (DMCA: even talking about how to circumvent copy-protection technologies is illegal, much less doing so, regardless of the purpose for which you do so), while the pirate can trivially circumvent the protection anyway. So, if a new band turned up that i really loved, i would choose to do without before i'd buy it--there's always the radio. Or, i might download at least a few tracks (probably not teh whole album, but out of laziness rather than moral imperative). But, even if i think the price is reasonable for the degree to which i like the music, i'm not gonna support some of the big producers--put the identical CD out on a different label, even at a higher price, and i'll buy. Whether it's logical or not.

Then again, i also bought Aqua's first album (the one with Barbie Girl on it) only because of Mattel's lawsuit against them. Sure, i enjoyed the song, but not badly enough to buy it. Then i heard about the lawsuit. I looked around for the single for a while, but nobody had it. $20 for one song wasn't reasonable. $20 to get one song and thumb my nose at a foolish, hypocritical, frivolous lawsuit, and maybe give the victims of teh lawsuit a little more money, was perfectly reasonable. So i bought the full album. I'm just upset with myself that i never got around to writing Mattel that letter, pointing out that "Barbie Girl" wasn't gonna do any damage to the image of Barbie that Mattel hadn't already done, and all their lawsuit was doing was making the song more popular. I wonder if there's any point, now?

 

[woodelf]

Of course it is. I never tried to suggest otherwise. But if it is worth nothing to you then don't download the file in the first place.

Don't forget that at least some downloading occurs precisely to discern whether the product is worth something to the consumer. They can't not download it because it's worthless, because they don't yet know it's worthless. Also, that completely ignores the spectrum of desire: it's not "i want" and "i don't want"--there are degrees of want, and value comes into it. Frex, i almost never go to first-run movies these days. There just aren't very many movies that're worth $10 to me. About the only time i do go is when i'm "voting with my dollars": when i care very strongly that a movie do well, in the hopes that more like it in some fashion (in the same genre/by the same director/with the same actor/from the same production company/whatever) will get made, i'll do my little part to make the numbers look good. Otherwise, i'll wait for the 2nd-run theater ($4 w/student ID), the budget theater ($2.50), or video (which is actually more expensive, at ~$4/rental, but i can split the cost, and i'm saving on time by doing it at my convenience). Similarly, a lot of my RPG purchases occur 2nd-hand or on sale. But, it is still possible for my desire for a book to fall short of the cheapest price i can get it at. Sometimes, i luck out: i stumbled on a rather beat-up copy of W:tA 2nd ed. for <$5, which brought it below my threshhold (i'd previously not bought it because i had the original edition). Usually, i don't.

So then, the question becomes: if i am never going to realistically find the product at a price that agrees with my personal value of the product, and therefore am otherwise not going to buy the product, have i done any harm to the producer by downloading a free, illegal, scan? I'm not sure. It seems oversimplistic to say 'no'--if only because the availability of the illegal scan is likely to skew market perceptions of value, if not my own perceptions. But it seems equally oversimplistic to just say 'yes'.

Oh, and don't forget the compulsive collectors. I have a friend who has downloaded the entire run of Dragonball Z and burned it to VCD (or maybe DVD). Along with lots of other stuff. He'll never watch it, and he makes no pretense that he'll watch it. He'd never buy Dragonball Z, no matter how cheaply. He did it just to have a "complete set". From other threads, i suspect that there are a fair number of people out there collecting PDF scans of RPG books who never use the scans they download. The point isn't to game with them, it's to have the biggest collection. They wouldn't be interested if they were legal, even if they were still free. No idea what percentage of the piracy population this represents, however.

I notice that when I go to the box office to buy the ticket that they don't just let me pay what I think the performance will be worth to me (down to and including $0). Instead, the producer of the product sets the price and I decide that I either will or will not pay that price for the product offered. Stealing the product because I'm not willing to pay full price does not fit into my moral code.

What about haggling over the price? Now, i realize that that isn't what's going on. But right now, the system is as you say: price is X, you pay it or do without--or steal it, giving the producers nothing. I wonder if the producers might not come out better off if the "default" price was X, but they would lower it in some circumstances. Would enough people who previously stole it pay some Y, less than X, to make up for those who previously paid X and now only pay Y? It would be like sales, only on a vaster scale, and more arbitrary.

 

[Rel]

So then, the question becomes: if i am never going to realistically find the product at a price that agrees with my personal value of the product, and therefore am otherwise not going to buy the product, have i done any harm to the producer by downloading a free, illegal, scan? I'm not sure. It seems oversimplistic to say 'no'--if only because the availability of the illegal scan is likely to skew market perceptions of value, if not my own perceptions. But it seems equally oversimplistic to just say 'yes'.

I disagree that it is "oversimplistic" to say that "yes" the vendor is harmed. The vendor is unquestionably harmed because every person who downloads a product illegally, places some value on that product but that money never reaches the person legally selling the product. Many people throughout this thread have said that lots of these products are worth nothing to them. This is untrue because, at very least, it was worth the time it took for them to locate and download the product and was worth the space that it takes up on their computer and the time they spent viewing the product. That time and effort must necessarily be valued at greater than $0.

Here's "the thing" folks (and you can feel free to disagree if you like but I haven't seen anything in this thread that has convinced me that this isn't "the thing"): This issue cannot be looked at from an economic standpoint.

In a rational market, the buyer will always seek the lowest price he can get for a product, all other factors being equal. The only "unequal factors" in this case are the ethical infraction of taking the fruits of someone else's labor without paying for them and the theory that, if everybody illegally downloads the product, then the producer will stop producing because there is no profit in it. Those are the only two reasons that I can see that prevent people from simply downloading everything they want for free.

The conclusion that I draw from this (and here's where opinions will probably differ the most) is that since I don't want the supply of product to go away, I cannot and will not condone the erosion of the moral argument against illegal filesharing.

 

[woodelf]

Gee, all of a sudden I invade privacy and federal computer laws by inserting a tracking method for a product?

Hmmmm, let's see what else does this...

WINDOWS!
Norton Antivirus!
Hundreds of software titles use this system. In order to register/update, etc, it pings a server.

Yep. And those are equally problematic, IMHO. That's just one more reason to add to the long list of reasons why i won't use MSWindows, frex. Now, i don't know if it's illegal, but i do think it's reprehensible, in general.

Now, how did I invade thier privacy? Are IP number private, or are they public information that the backbone of using your computer on the internet is based off of?

No copies of thier hard-drives. No identification of names. No information what so ever, at all.

Just }ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

That's it. Ping.

Your computer does that on a regular basis. This site leaves more data and examines more data on your system than my little tracker did.

Honestly, to me, that little statement reminds me of a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar who yells: "FINE! I'LL NEVER EAT COOKIES ANYWAY!" at his catcher.

Thanks for the accusation that I invaded people's privacy and broke federal computing laws. Thanks for the libel. I appreciate your devotion to the facts, as well as the intent and scope of what I did.

Remind me, if I ever regain the ability to really care about things, to reread the section on how I'm a criminal.

OK, i'm no expert on the relevant laws, but i was under the impression that tracking like that, if you don't tell the consumer you're doing it, is illegal. I don't think anyone was trying to libel you, rather, they were just pointing out that you'd have to explain how you had the info if you were to choose to press the matter in court, and that that would open you up for counter-accusations. Whether merited or not.

And additionally, if you read it again, this is what was done...

I took the online "FREE SAMPLE", inflated the PDF and zip size, added my code to **PING** an IP address (the massive invasion of privacy I did, a PING! Oh my god, I know everything about them, and can now watch them in the shower! They've been violated by a PING! I could get more data with a whois on mIRC!) edited the zipfile comments and file comments to match the illegal copies on KaZaA, Bearshare, Gnutella, eMule and others, and placed it in a folder.

The "Free Sample"...

Not my complete work.

But, apparently my data was skewed. One person downloaded it and just opened it a lot. And continued to open it, a lot, just because he likes to see: "BUY THE REAL BOOK, THIEF!" in big red letters at the top of the pages of the PDF....

OK, now this part i missed before. So you're saying that the version you tracked didn't have any useful content? Or did the sample pages have complete bits to them (an entire spell, or entire class, or whatever)? 'Cause if it was pretty much unusable, i'm really entertained (and confused) by the number of people you had opening it multiple times for many months.

I like how an attempt was made, both to discredit what I did, and to claim that I am a worse criminal than those who download the RPG material...

Um, i don't think anyone was trying to do that. I read it as simply pointing out why you couldn't take your data and make a court case out of it.

Here's some data to consider...

Many companies are moving to no longer producing computer games. Why? Because you can download ISO CD files within days of the product hitting the shelf to copy the CD, complete with instruction for the stupid.

RPG PDF's are moving to the "Why bother? They'll just steal it." train of thought.

This is probably wrong, but i really wouldn't care if computer games (and console games) just completely disappeared. In fact, i think we'd be better off. But obviously pirating them out of business is the wrong way to get there.

Oh, and for those of you who were wondering, we will be inserting microchips within all hard-copy books that allow me to track you on my global sat-system and watch your sister take a shower.

As for the invasion of privacy angle: chips that merely track sales of products are not being used in the US right now because of that very concern. I know i won't ever knowingly buy a product with an active tracking microchip in it (unless that's a function of the product, such as a cell phone). Call me a paranoid if you want, but i do consider a computer file that tells some central server "hey! i'm here!" an invasion of privacy--whether it is legally defined as such or not. This is not the same as saying that what you did was despicable. I actually fully support it. The degree to which you invaded anyone's privacy is super-minimal, it was in pursuit of a goal that really couldn't be achieved without some invasion of privacy, it only targeted those who were doing something illegal and brought it upon themselves, and it was in pursuit of a goal that really merits pursuing (actual data on e-book piracy). It is, however, still too small of a sample, and too uncontrolled, to be conclusive. But it is definitely illustrative.

 

[woodelf]

The fact is simple: IP is important if we want art and literature. As a writer, my IP is as important to me as the Ford assembly line is to it. If you took away Ford's assembly line or even borrowed it for a weekend, is that acceptable? I get paid for writing most of the time--when I do it for pay. A doctor works for pay also. Should he work for free?

Honestly, if copyright expires within the creator's lifetime, is that fair? Should the investments made by private companies become public property after ten years?

That depends on what you mean by "investments". I'd certainly support anything that lessened the power and influence of big corporations, though i'm not sure limiting the duration of value of goods would do it. Heck, i'd absolutely love it if corporations were abolished, in favor of cooperatives. But i think i've gotten on a tangent here, and i'm not really addressing your comment, since i'm not suer what you mean by investments in this context.

I know it is difficult to get our heads around IP, but it as much property to those of us who rely on it as your home is to you. I won't steal your home if you don't steal my IP.

Speaking as someone who hopes to make my living on IP, i disagree. IP and property feel very different to me: sharing IP creates more IP; sharing property creates less property (or at least divides up the same amount). Now, i'm not saying that IP creators don't deserve recompense and/or protection of their IP. But i think it is inaccurate to say it is "just like" material property, and laws/principles based on that belief will, i believe, end up flawed.

 

[woodelf]

To print up a supplement that has been downloaded will often cost as much if not more and you'll end up with a lower quality product. PDF's are fine for reference on the computer, but not much beyond that. I've determined that if I were to print about 60 pages, it would use half of a black cartridge. $40+paper for approximately a 128 pages. It is cheaper to simply purchase it at the store.

That's why i don't have an inkjet. A good laser printer will give you 5k-10k pages for one toner cartridge, costing $50-$100. Or on the order of $0.01 per page, plus paper. Thus, legitimate e-books are much more appealing to me. I consider the printing a non-cost (which, for most of them, is reasonable--it's certainly less than $1), so the cost is just the PDF plus, maybe, binding at Kinko's. Tangent over.

 

[woodelf]

To the oft-made response "Well, I didn't like enough to buy it", if the individual in question had no interest in it, then why take it?

Actually, the usual response is (or would be if the responder were speaking precisely): "Well, i didn't like it enough to buy it at any price i could find it at." Obviously, the individual in question has some interest in it. Though, it could be just the collector's interest of having it, with no use intended. And the interest could, legitimately, be near-zero. Not saying this justifies the piracy in a legal sense, but it can explain how someone can be consistent when claiming it "wasn't worth it" while still pirating it.

 

[woodelf]

Yes, the material has been copied. Material that was in the store for the purpose of sale was removed from the store without the sale occuring. The difference between this case and one where the book itself is shoplifted is immaterial as far as whether stealing has occured. Sure, someone could claim that no "material" has been stolen, similar to someone claiming that nothing was lost if a thief shoplifted a book and there were a lot of other copies, but I don't find this meaningful. The thief removed the material offered for sale as he now has a copy outside the door that he can use that he didn't pay for.

Situation before theft:
5 books on shelf.
Situation after theft:
4 books on shelf, one book in thief's hands.

Situation before piracy:
5 books on shelf.
Situation after piracy:
5 books on shelf, 1 book in pirate's hands.

They are clearly not identical situations. And that's where this whole dillemma comes from. Our standard theft laws are predicated on the notion that the total quantity of goods is a constant, so if one person gains, another must lose. With IP, this isn't necessarily so. Something has happened, because the pirate has a copy. But something else hasn't happened, because the producer hasn't lost a copy. There is, quite literally, no loss: nothing is missing/gone. So the question then becomes, what does this mean? Is (1) the thief/pirate getting a copy without paying the part that is the crime, and it doesn't matter whether or not the producer has lost a copy? Or is it (2) the loss of the copy that is the real crime, and where that copy went is immaterial? Or is it (3) some combination/balance of the two?

If (1), then piracy is just as bad as theft. And, arson is no crime because the arsonist hasn't gained anything from it.

If (2), then piracy isn't a crime.

If (3) (as i believe), then it's still unclear exactly what the balance is. I have trouble accepting that piracy is as severe of a crime as theft. But, at the same time, i have trouble accepting that it isn't a crime at all.

 

[scott-fs]

That's why i don't have an inkjet. A good laser printer will give you 5k-10k pages for one toner cartridge, costing $50-$100. Or on the order of $0.01 per page, plus paper. Thus, legitimate e-books are much more appealing to me. I consider the printing a non-cost (which, for most of them, is reasonable--it's certainly less than $1), so the cost is just the PDF plus, maybe, binding at Kinko's. Tangent over.

Quite true. Laser printers have become much cheaper, so I may look into that option. I have a lot of legitimate* pdfs that I'd like to print out.

* Legitimate as in the 70 or so Harn fanworks that I have. For those who care.

 

[woodelf]

Another little tidbit for folks to chew on - the RIAA has said that it has lost revenue to filesharing. But, oddly, the number of records actually passing out the doors of record stores has increased in the past year. It's an odd bit of accounting, described in this article.

The thing is this - pirating software and files is illegal. And we have a perception that this is hurting the industry through lost sales. But the only folks I know of who have tried to prove this sort of thing has been the RIAA, and they're using really screwy bookkeeping to do it. We have a perception that it hurts the industry, but no solid statistical proof.

That's not a good basis upon which to have this sort of conversation, is it?

Actually, someone *has* done an actual study of this. I'll post the link again: http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March2004.pdf . Short version: "downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero." Mind you, this is just one study, but that's better than we had before. At least it's from an impartial observer.