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Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 1560546" data-attributes="member: 10201">Of course, the flaw there isn't paying artists to create (rather than paying them specifically for their works), it's using criteria other than artistic merit when deciding who to pay and how much.Actually, my experience is that it's slightly more complex than that. If supply significantly exceeds demand, auctions seem to lead to lower prices than "regular" selling. If supply and demand are close, or demand exceeds supply, then auctions seem to lead to higher prices. Problem is, the stuff i've always bought used is stuff where demand apparently matches or exceeds supply: I buy a lot fewer RPG books nowadays because they go for a lot more on eBay than i used to pay for them online.Well, i know better than to use myself as a representative data point for much of anything, much less economic behavior. But today on the way home from work i dropped $5 in the return slot of my favorite video store. They suffered some water damage (covered by insurance) in the recent storms, and i just wanted to help out, even though they probably don't need it. I also frequently pass on the opportunity to use store coupons at my favorite retailers, because i know that the savings for me simply come out of their income. For that matter, as a general trend, i'll probably give more money to the person who gives it to me for free than i would be willing to pay if the good or service was being charged for. Heck, i bought OtE 2nd ed precisely because there was essentially nothing new in it, and Atlas had deliberately written it so that those of us (like me) who already owned OtE 1st ed would feel no "need" to buy the new edition. So i bought a 2nd copy of the RPG, effectively, just to "reward" the company for what i see as good behavior towards the consumer, rather than out of any economic gain on my part.The ethics sholudn't differ. But perhaps the situations do. And, moreover, perhaps the behavior does. It is not at all bizarre to me to think that the very same people might behave one way when it comes to downloading MP3s, and a different way WRT downloading RPG PDFs. Which, getting back to the topic, might mean that all that data on CD sales and MP3 sharing we're all bandying about (on both sides of the debate) might be mostly meaningless to predicting how downloading has affected, or might affect, RPGs.</blockquote>

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