File-Sharing: Has it affected the RPG industry?

[WayneLigon]

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?

You are correct; original post edited for snarkiness. I apologize.

 

[Henry]

MODERATOR HAT ON

We've seemed to go through this thread without direct attacks or insults on posters; let's let that trend continue, please, as long as the thread's going to last.

If it doesn't, I'll have to shut the thread down post-haste. Thanks, all!

MOD HAT OFF

 

[Spell]

long post... sorry!

I download a lot. And I buy a lot.
As somebody else on this boards, I download because I want to check out the product before I buy. If I like it, I set the price that I want to pay for it. If I am thinking of using (or if i'm already using) more than half of the product, I buy it full price immediately. Else, I try to buy it second-hand, or at discount, or when I have enough money.
By doing so, I was able to discover that my prejudices towards GURPS, HackMaster, Bob Dylan, Franz Ferdinand and others were just misconceptions.

Am I doing something legal? No way.
But, you see, sometimes, that's not really the point.
I'm not a solicitor. Nevertheless, I think that codified laws were invented (some 5 thousand years ago) to avoid that those stronger and bullier that then average Joe could take advantage of him. I also seem to remember that the principle that the punishment must be adequate to the crime was accepted some 500 years ago, when mr. Cesare Beccaria wrote the seminal book "On Crimes and Punishment".

I go on-line. I download a new album. Even if you compare that to actually stealing the CD from a shop (it is not: where is the booklet with art, pictures and lyrics? where is the superior CD quality?), please tell me why the theft of a $20 CD could cost me $150,000 PER SONG.
You could argue that I was offering the file to other users to steal... But how can you prove it? How can you say _precisely_ that I was offering it, and that X number of people was downloading it from me?

Please explain me how can anybody accuse me of being a thief and an immoral person while:
1) the RIAA has lied to the congress and to the media (according to numerous studies, the sales of CDs are _not_ down because of downloading; and check this out, too: http://slashdot.org/articles/04/05/14/0051258.shtml?tid=126&tid=141&tid=188&tid=95)
2) some of the major labels have misused the license of the CD media offered by Philiphs by making their CD impossible to play and copy (even for fair use!) in computes (i cannot find the article right now... it would be somewhere on www.boycott-riaa.com)
3) BMG was actually paying for the development of Napster while blaming it and its users for "theft"
4) some of the majors labels are in court, accused of stealing profits from their own artists (http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/5111, for example... this means that my favourite artist could never see a penny even if I buy his album 500 times).
5) RIAA pays the radio stations to get airplay for their albums, so that the music that is played is decided by dollars, not by the actual value of music.
This and a lot more.

The average music fan, with an internet connection, is downloading music. I think the same applies to the average RPG gamer, to a lesser extent. Why RPG gamers download less? Sure enough, having the real book in your hands does feel way better. But I think that part of the issue is also that no RPG company has gone out of their way to paint the average customer as an immoral and coward thief.
As mr. Heard has pointed out in one of his posts, this attitude hardly wins more customers.
Being willing to spend time and money in court and to lob the government to advocate a draconian view of the existing laws: now that's immorality! That's precisely the attitude against which the laws should protect the average Joe from. Think again. Not in this world.

So, in my case, I know that the law is against me. But I also think that I am doing nothing morally wrong. I do not sell pirated books or CDs to anybody. I just take a good look at the real thing (a look I couldn't give in any shop, for various reasons), and then decide if I am going to use it (and so I buy it) or not.


A couple of other things, just to offer you a perspective.

I am a musician and a freelance author on my spare time. You could think that I had everything to gain, if the RIAA wins and downloads are wiped away from the face of earth. I would be damned if I do!

You see, I could give away all of my CDs for free, if I get the radio play that Metallica are getting. I could sent it to your homes (expenses on me!) if I could get the crow that Britney generates. The amount of money that I could generate for myself _just by selling records_ is minimal. Gigs. that's where real money is. And not just for me, a struggling youngster, but for metallica, and britney, too. Gigs, publicity, merchandising. That's where money is.

It is true that a professional recording costs a lot of money. In my experience, just the recording and the manifacture of the 1000 CD is $15,000 - $20,000.
You might be wondering how on earth I could have a professional recording with that amount of money. I tell you: my band mates and I are real musician. We record live in studio and make some overdubs.
If Michael Jackson or whoever has to play his parts 20 times to get it right, than it's his business. If he wants to hire an entire orchestra to do a 2 notes background to one song, then it's his business.

I could add a lot more to this, and explain my position even better... but this forum is still a RPG forum, not a music business one.

Now go on and trash my views, call me an immoral person, explain me why I am a communist, or whatever. I don't think this kind of attitude will convince me that I am one of those things.

Have fun.

 

[Greyhawk_DM]

How does a store like Half-Price books fit into this discussion?
For example I go to my local FLGS see the Draconomicon book that WOTC just put out. I don't want to pay the 40.00 bucks for it, so I don't buy it. Later on I see the same book at Half-Price Books for 20.00 bucks and buy it. WOTC didn't get my money, but I do have the book. Was the book stolen from WOTC because I didn't pay them for the book?

Another example would be if a friend of mine bought the book and didn't like it and gave it to me for free. The other side would be someone buys the book and scans it into the computer and then puts it up on a p2p site and i download it. In either case the book was purchased and yet I still got it for free. Would either case be considered stealing?

 

[johnsemlak]

How does a store like Half-Price books fit into this discussion?
For example I go to my local FLGS see the Draconomicon book that WOTC just put out. I don't want to pay the 40.00 bucks for it, so I don't buy it. Later on I see the same book at Half-Price Books for 20.00 bucks and buy it. WOTC didn't get my money, but I do have the book. Was the book stolen from WOTC because I didn't pay them for the book?

Another example would be if a friend of mine bought the book and didn't like it and gave it to me for free. The other side would be someone buys the book and scans it into the computer and then puts it up on a p2p site and i download it. In either case the book was purchased and yet I still got it for free. Would either case be considered stealing?

Difference is very simple.

In the first case a hard copy was paid in full, to the copyright owner (WotC). What happens with the original copy of that book after it is originally purchased (within reason, and barring making illegal copies) is immaterial. You can re-sell it, give it away, whatever. In any case, the originally buyer parts with their copy, and the copy goes to a new owner.

In the second case, the original buyer keeps their copy, but another person has a scanned copy they didn't pay for.

 

[The Sigil]

How does a store like Half-Price books fit into this discussion?
For example I go to my local FLGS see the Draconomicon book that WOTC just put out. I don't want to pay the 40.00 bucks for it, so I don't buy it. Later on I see the same book at Half-Price Books for 20.00 bucks and buy it. WOTC didn't get my money, but I do have the book. Was the book stolen from WOTC because I didn't pay them for the book?

No. The legal doctrine in question is "Right of First Sale."

Basically, it states that once a copyright holder has been paid for a copy of the book, the person paying is allowed to do whatever the heck they want with that copy so long as they do not infringe copyright (i.e., you can use a razor to deconstruct the book into its component pages, but you cannot re-print the text and give the re-print to others).

This includes turning around and re-selling the book for whatever price they like (including free)... but they have to sell THE COPY THEY PAID FOR, and not "a copy of the copy they paid for" (see the difference).

In the case of a used bookstore, WotC probably got paid by the Distributor company. The instant WotC takes that money, the fate of those copies of the books the Distributor paid for is now no longer WotC's to control. The Distributor might sell some of them to your FLGS. Your FLGS might sell them to your local used book store. All of this is legal... but again, this applies only to "the copy of the work paid for" and not "a copy of the copy of the work paid for."

Another example would be if a friend of mine bought the book and didn't like it and gave it to me for free.

Right of First Sale. WotC loses control of what happens to THAT PARTICULAR COPY of the content when it is paid for (but not a copy of that copy). Your friend is within his rights to give it to you.

The other side would be someone buys the book and scans it into the computer and then puts it up on a p2p site and i download it.

Here, Right of First Sale does not apply. You did not get the particular copy paid for, you got a copy of that copy. Your copy (of a copy) was not paid for; copyright infringement has occured.

In either case the book was purchased and yet I still got it for free. Would either case be considered stealing?

As others have said, the difference in the second case is that the p2p sharer still has a copy.

I think that's the essential thing to grasp with copyright. Don't track the physical book. Track the "copy of the material." One book is one copy. One scan is one copy. Copying/scanning a book makes an additional (unpaid for) copy of the material. The fundamental question in copyright is not "book" but rather the arrangement of words and pictures it contains that communicate an idea; if this arrangement is replicated, whether it be as a "book on tape" or a "scan" or "text file" or a "file on CD" or a "physical paper and ink book," that's *still* a copy.

The fundamental question then becomes: how many copies exist? How many have been paid for? Exclude, of course, "backup copies" that belong to a person with a "regular copy" (this falls under Fair Use, as it is assumed that the single person does not gain extra utility by using multiple copies simultaneously; the material is accessible to the person either way)

If the number of copies that exist is greater than the number that have been paid for, copyright infringement has occurred. The copyright holder agreed to give one copy for X dollars, not two copies or ten copies.

Does that help clear up the differences among the scenarios above? Legal scenarios are those that involve transfer of a single, "already-paid-for" copy. Illegal scenarios are those that involve transfer of "not-already-paid-for" copies of a copy.

--The Sigil

IANAL, TINLA

 

[Dr. Harry]

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.

In the academic world, there exist direct rewards for publishing material. Due to the importance of peer review in the scientific process, frequent publication is the ideal and there exist mechanisms to reward this that are quite separate from the idea of obtaining direct profit through the sale of the material. For example, academic tenure depends strongly on the publication rate of a faculty member, thus rewarding the release of the material in a manner completely different from that in the commercial model.

Furthermore, building your work on the work of others is a virtue, but this is not plagarism, and plagarism is most certainly *not* a virtue. I do not recommend trying to copy someone else's paper and submitting it as your own work; you will find out quite quickly how plagarism is rewarded. This could simply be sloopy use of language, but the sloppy use of language ("copyright infringement is not theft", "idea vs. processed idea", etc.) has already caused a great deal of difficulty in this thread.

I am not going to address your political ideas, other than to note that your personal utopia, the absence of which seems to justify your actions in your own eyes, is radically different than any of the models that any of us are working in.

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.

So IP should be preserved, but not enforced?

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 don't consider myself a grim or pessimestic person, but I am in awe regarding your optimism about human nature.

 

[Dr. Harry]

A Tiny, Tiny Tangent

How does a store like Half-Price books fit into this discussion?
For example I go to my local FLGS see the Draconomicon book that WOTC just put out. I don't want to pay the 40.00 bucks for it, so I don't buy it. Later on I see the same book at Half-Price Books for 20.00 bucks and buy it.

Where are you at? I'd pay $20 for the Dragonomicon; please don't tell me it was at the Corpus Christi Half-Price and I missed it! (The Corpus Christi Half-Price does have a surprising amount of 3e.)

 

[The Sigil]

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.

Bzzt. Wrong.

(Justice Breyer) raised an analogy he would repeat with the Solicitor General. He asked whether under Eldred's argument it would be permissible to recopyright the bible, Ben Johnson, or Shakespeare.
...
He also asked whether the government could recopyright Ben Johnson. The government did not say "no."

Beware! Many foreign works that were previously in the public domain for failure to comply with technical requirements of U.S. law (including copyright notice and renewal requirements) were restored to copyright in 1996 under the GATT and NAFTA international trade treaties. In order to be restored, the foreign work had to be under copyright in the "source" country and not first published in the United States. Revived works, which are no longer in the public domain, cannot be used without permission of the copyright owner.

Once upon a time, works published with an improper copyright notice (that is, the ©), went into the public domain upon publication. Many works now in the public domain are there because of inadvertent publication without notice. However, since March, 1, 1989, copyright notice is no longer required. Be aware, that if notice was omitted in error on copies distributed between January 1, 1978 and March 1, 1989, copyright was not automatically lost, if certain preventive measures were taken to cure the oversight.

Copyright CAN in fact be retroactively extended and take works out of the public domain.

Copyright is not perpetual. While extensions are permitted, even the longest extension is still finite.

You might think so. Congress doesn't.

Actually, Sonny wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a change would violate the Constitution. I invite all of you to work with me to strengthen our copyright laws in all of the ways available to us. As you know, there is also Jack Valenti's proposal for term to last forever less one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress.

(Emphasis mine).

I find it hard to believe that anyone thinks under the current regime that ANYTHING will ever fall out of copyright again, since the current methodology is simply:

IF Copyright Term of Steamboat Willie MINUS Today's Date is less than 2 years
THEN Extend Copyright Term.

Just because it nowhere states infinity doesn't mean it de facto IS infinity.

The ability to make the first economic use of IP is the essense of copyright. Instantly dumping IP into the public domain does no one any good.

You've hit on the essence of copyright. The problem is, current media companies would adjust your statement to:

"The ability to make any use of IP is the essence of copyright."

OGL (the Open Gaming License) is what it is- a LICENSE- not the wholesale release of IP into the public domain. Licensees are still subject to rules and restrictions- you can't just use something produced under OGL for ANY reason. You violate the license, it can be yanked. It can even be the basis for a lawsuit. In other words, there are still copyright holders with their hands on the wheel controlling what gets used for what.

Very true. However, the restrictions are relatively minor and have the (to some, undesirable) stricture that anything you create through derivation must also be released with those same minor restrictions. In other words, if you stand on the shoulders of those who came before, you must be willing to let others stand on your shoulders, too (most people and corporations involved in IP - hate that stricture, which is probably why we see such limiting PI declarations in an attempt to close down as much as possible).

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. It used to be that if you bought a new game, you got a new system with it. GURPS, HERO, Palladium and Storyteller are still holding their own, but I haven't seen but a couple of completely new game systems actually hit the shelves recently. Looking at my bookshelf, I can see more than 60 different RPGs. All of the ones pre-D20 are different from the ground up- character generation, combat, spell system, etc., even the ones that were trying to rip off D&D. Since D20...lets just say that there are a lot of D20 versions of already extant good games from many companies- Traveller, Deadlands, Call of Cthuhu, Legend of the 5 Rings, The Trinity System, Silver Age Sentinels... When was the last major diceless RPG system released? Quite simply, new non-D20 games are handicapped in the current RPG market. How is the critically acclaimed D6 WWII superhero game GODLIKE doing? Green Ronin's Spaceship Zero? In Nomine? You should be able to find most of them in discount bins.

This may be a "chicken-and-egg" thing. Why did games pre-OGL have "from the ground up" character creation rules? Answer: Because you HAD to do it that way to avoid copyright snags. Why is there so much d20 stuff post-OGL? Because you DON'T have to build from the ground up and you can avoid potential copyright pitfalls. If all I want to do is publish an adventure, why should I have to re-invent the wheel (a new game system) to do it? The OGL allows companies to create small "add-ons" rather than re-design the whole game system from scratch. This lowers the "intellectual" barrier of entry considerably. That means people can more easily support the d20 system. Because of all that extra support, "other systems" are headed for the discount bins, because they lack it...

I'm not sure which is the cause of the other, but I am relatively certain that the reason other systems aren't seeing the same level of support as d20 is that they CAN'T (due to copyright nastiness). If GURPS or Palladium or other systems opened up their rules under an OGL or similar agreement, I'm sure you would see them getting support as well.

It may be that those who are so desperate to hold on to "their precious" will wind up losing everything in the long run. :/

With that homogenization, we have gained conceptual portability-learn 1 game, learn them all. However, lots of character has been lost. Example, Traveller didn't use a decimal numeric system-it used hexidecimal (those silly math-heads!). It was also the only game system I know of that had the chance of PC death during character generation. Traveller D20 loses all of that.

Again, lack of support is due to "closed content."

As for the availability of material in a world with unfettered downloading, my conclusion was not as harsh as that other poster. There will still be material available, possibly even lots. Quality, however, will suffer. Anyone who has a quality game will keep it in house because he knows he won't get any cash for trying to go commercial.

I don't quite agree, and I'll show why in a moment.

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.

There IS economic incentive to disseminate IP... but it's a much tougher incentive. You absolutely, positively must "get it right" the first time. This is because there is always going to be some time lag between the time your product hits the shelves, and a "mass-produced copied substitute" is available. If you do it right the first time, by the time the copied substitute is available, it's "too late" to put much of a dent in your sales.

Exhibit A: The first Freeport adventure. It's 100% OGC (I believe including maps and all - I'm not sure, as it was sold out at my FLGS and I never got a copy); legally, therefore, it can be copied under the OGL. But it hasn't been. Why not? Because Green Ronin did it right the first time. Anyone who wants one has already paid for one; if I were to put out a copy, I wouldn't get any sales.

To me, what that means is that quality would go up - people would make sure they did it right the first time, and not lazily rely on copyright to protect them, because they'd know it's "get it right or die" as opposed to "hey, even if we get it wrong, nobody can compete with us thanks to copyright." Truly, honestly, I believe lack of copyright would lead to higher-quality work because of this principle. And those who knew they could do it right would still do it.

Just a thought.

--The Sigil

 

[The Sigil]

this would not be nearly as interesting or fecund as an area for discussion as the difference (if I understand the difference correctly) between The Sigil and myself about where the most basic rights are based in the creator/social relationship.

A topic on which we agree to disagree, and can do so amiably. Still, the exploration is fascinating. I have found that in order to truly understand your own point of view, you must be able to effectively argue the opposite point of view. In other words, you understand the argument, while rejecting one or more of the assumptions/principles on which it is founded. I think Dr. Harry and I do that with each other's arguments... and this makes for a discussion which is both civil and stimulating. Thanks, Harry.

--The Sigil