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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dana_Jorgensen" data-source="post: 1540465" data-attributes="member: 12962">There's some ground I want to cover with this response...1.)JingJang, maps by Rand-McNally and WotC are two very different things. Street maps, world atlases and the like are essentially purely factual historical documents and technically shouldn't be covered under copyright law on that very basis. On the other hand, a map in a game is very often a work of fiction that does not present a historical representation of any place in the real world, so they are covered under copyright law the same as any other work of fiction.2.) What counts as a lost sale? An individual having the product and not paying for it. That's it, end of discussion. Just because they claim they would not have bought it doesn't mean you've heard the gospel of truth uttered from their lips. The fact is they have it and they didn't pay for it. Thier possession means the publisher lost money.3.) Justification is nothing but lip service. They say they never would have bought it to begin with? To that I say why is it still sitting on their systems? If it was so worthless to them, I'd think they'd get rid of it to make it easier to manage their illegal collection of "useful things". They can't afford it? Why are they wasting time gaming instead of working a second job if they're that broke? Besides, now is not forever. You steal the book now, which means when you can afford it, you won't be buying it. Downloaded it for a preview? if you didn't like it, you should have deleted it. If you did like it, you should have deleted it until you bought it. But in the end, none of these justifications explains away putting the files out there to share off your own computer. Once you've done that, you've made yourself an accomplice to the ongoing crimes of copyright infringement and counterfeiting.I think the real truth is that regardless the justification offered, in the end it is all a matter of greed. In the end, a desire to have the product without spending money on it, for whatever reason, generates a sense of greed that overrides their understanding that we authors have earned the money they would have spent on it.4.) having a hardcopy of the book in its print edition does not entitle you to the right to produce backups. About 10 years ago, a law firm started "saving" money by photcopying pages of books in their legal library. They were sued by numerous publishers over this action and the publishers won on the ground that there was nothing stopping the law firm from buying multiple copies of the books for decimation down to individual pages to serve the same purpose as the photocopies.5.) They only thing I see as justifiable is status of a book with a publisher. A book going out of print is like waving a huge flag and screaming "this book isn't worth selling anymore". If copyright were structured more like trademark with the "use it or lose it" model, OOP items wouldn't even be considered pirated. However, moving an OOP product to the PDF market does counter this entire outlook, so publishers should strongly consider moving an OOP product into PDF status ASAP after deciding to not reprint.6.) As far as the PDF industry is concerned, P2P applications usually do not represent the bulk the piracy. It is usenet and IRC that are the problems.7.) My own little "report" on piracy over a 13 month period is based on tracking down unique sources from which the files can be downloaded, unlike Warlord Ralts, who put together a means to track end users (his numbers suggest there could be as many as 5 end users for each source). Think about this. the average pdf can expect 100-500 sales in its lifespan. I uncovered over 700 sources for downloading my PDFs for free. Ralts identified 3000 end users who downloaded a pay product for free.</blockquote>

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