ender_wiggin said:
I've never actually taken anything out of a store (being raised with decent morals), but I must admit, the temptation is there, the motive is there, and the means is there. Does anyone know the manufacture price on these $50 books? All the gaming friends I knew face to face are either in college now or are doing drugs, so I don't know about their thievery individually, but I know its there, inexplicably.
It's all about the price vs value. Have I ever bought a legal copy of Windows XP Professional? That costs $280. Hell no, you burn a copy from your friend. Have I every bought a pdf? Hell no. You get a copy from your friend. It's that simple. If I had the people resources that some of you guys had, I would definately be ripping pdf versions of books off. I'll be honest - if I had enough money to buy a decent scanner I would do it myself.
Here is why what you are doing is stealing:
True when you copy a PDF, or MP3, or WindowsXP you are not really stealing anything physical. You are using means that are available to you to make a copy.
The law you are violating is called copyright law.
Lets talk about a copyright. A copyright is just that, it is a "right" given to someone to make a copy of somthing. Somtimes people have this right because they made the software, the song, or wrote the book. Other times, people pay to have the right to make copies. This is what happens in most of the publishing and the music industry(the RPG industry is turning out to be more like software industry). They pay the writer or artist for the exclusive rights to make and sell copies.
When you make a copy and you do not have the right to do so, you are violating the rights of those people. Just like the US government jailing a US citizen for speaking against it is violating their right to free speach. Or being a vigilante that kills his victims violates a criminals rights to due process.
You are saying when you make a copy that your happiness is more important than that of the game designer, the musician, or the software engineer that wrote the thing you are copying.
Here is why the rights work like they do:
Now, lets say Ford has just released the Model T. These cars are starting to be everywhere. You get a hold of one, and take it apart, and build a factory to make it. But you give the cars away. They are the exact same car as Ford is selling.
There are two ways you can do this. You can pay Ford for the right to make the car he designed. Or you can just make the cars. Ford will probably not sell you the rights to make the car if you are going to undersell him because that would put him out of business. Now he might be willing to do a contract with you that states that you cant sell them for less than he sells them. But he will probably not let you give them away and put him out of business, no matter how philanthopic your intentions. The government would probably be against you also because you are depriving Ford and his workers of their lively hoods and this will hurt the economy.
You need to understand this. Your computer is not a toy. The software used to design the MX missile was less powerful than Microsoft Excel. Thats MS Excel as it ran on Windows 3.11. If you were smart enough, your computer could be used to topple governments and crash economies. And I do not mean by being a leet haxor and turning stuff off. Your computer is a data factory. Instead of making cars, it makes data files. When you copy a PDF, software, MP3 or other you disrupt the process by which people make thier livings and lead thier lives. If you had any sort of moral compass, you would learn this, like I did, and stop. Play by the rules.
About the rules:
Somtimes the rules don't work. We see this in the music industry. For 30 years the record companies have been using thier means of distribution to stick it to the artists and the people that listen to their music. If you don't agree with this, don't copy and distribute MP3s. Instead figure out a way to distribute music that cuts out these record companies and distributes the music in a better way. Change the rules. Don't hurt people. It costs money (about one million) to make a recording. Thats just the musicians and the mics and the studio. Until MP3s it cost a lot more to distribute. But CDs whlie costing a fraction of the cost of a record to make are sold at twice that ammount. But you still hurt a lot of people when you copy an MP3. Do you think the fat cat exec is going to for a minute allow you to hurt him? No, he will pass the cost on to his underlings and the musicians you so claim to love.
A quick bit back to the cost of Windows XP. That is not that price because greedy microsoft wants money. Its that price because microsoft knows how much people pirate thier software and they price accordingly to make a profit. Video games are even moreso. Think the prices are too high? Stop pirating. They will drop.
For gaming books this is not the case. But when you PDF a book and distribute it for free, you hurt the company that makes what you are giving away. You are saying that you and your friends are more important than the company. However, when the company goes away, and can't provide you and your friends entertaining gaming books anymore who have you really hurt? You have hurt your friends for a much longer time than you helped them out. You have hurt yourself. You have hurt all the people at the company that made the game. Would you do all this and still claim you are moral?
"Such a loss. People have no grasp of what they do."
Aaron.
