Hell has frozen over..DriveThruRPG selling non-DRM books

[jester47]

Because it's not effective.

Anyone with the time, patience, skill, and correct editing software can either; a) Remove the watermark and everything with it, leaving a perfectly viable (and high quality) PDF or b) _change_ the name...

ANY encryption method can be broken with time... So even if they encode xyx information in the watermark, someone could (and probably would) crack it eventually.

Imagine this scenario... you're sitting home gaming with some buds and get a knock at the door...

"Mr so-and-so, you're under arrest for copyright infringement and distribution of pirated material across state lines and country boundries"

Yea... I'm totally opposed to what DT does now, personally... as a publisher I understand why publishers like it.... but being in software I understand that piracy is _going_ to happen...

Sadly there is no all in one answer that someone, somewhere will much up because they're bored or like the challenge. *sigh*

It is effective, you just have to know how to use the technology in an effective way.

Tracking down pirates of RPGs is not an effective tactic.

The permanence of the watermark is largely a function of how it is implemented. With strong crypto embedded not on the pages of the PDF but as a digital signature distributed throughout and indeed as part of the document itself (that is to say that the removal of the signature removes parts of the doc) each copy is unique.

What this does is it creates a papertrail. With this information a producer of the PDF can track the number of pirated copies more easily. Once he has this number then he can protect his bottom line by adjusting prices to compensate for the piracy.

The US mint uses watermarks in this way. They don't do it to track counterfitters (well they do but that is somewhat secondary) they do it to track how much the counterfitters put into the system and then adjust the system to compensate. It helps them to tell the difference between funny money and the real stuff. Then they know how much funny money and real money to pull to keep the system stable.

On second teir piracy this is no good. But it does slow the first teir pirates down long enough to protect the profit margins as most of the sales and "aquisitions" are in the first month or so of the products release. This is why at WotC the first two weeks are crucial. According to Sean K. Reynolds the sales in the first two weeks determine the success of the line. If a PDF publisher can protect that sales spike, then hey, all the better for them.

Aaron.

 

[reanjr]

They same people also spend great amounts of money on RPG books. It isn't the same as music - I don't want to read books on my computer. I do want to listen to music on my computer.

Actually, in some studies, music pirates purchase more music than non-pirates. This may or may not be true for the eBook industry, but the idea has its merits. If you are publishing an eBook with rules, etc. putting a PDF on a website is about the best advertising and product recognition campaigns you can pursue. On the other hand, you gotta figure out how it will negatively affect sales.

My gut instinct is that rules-heavy books would be worth the "shrink" as they are the ones that are most necessary to have physical references at the game table. Rules-light systems, on the other hand, might be read through once and then not needed anymore, making them prime piracy targets.

As an example, I own the PDF of the Book of Iron Might (I would have bought the book, but I would have had to wait). I only heavily use one section of the book, and this section is simple to summarize in a small Notepad document (the combat maneuvers section). If I had to instead reference the book often, I would be much more likely to purchase the hard copy version. I still plan on doing so eventually, but that's more of a weird obsession thing I have with books than a good buying decision.

 

[reanjr]

I personally don't believe that piracy seriously impacts sales. Most of the pirates aren't going to buy the book if they can't get it off P2P, they just won't get it at all.

Maybe the hardcore pirates aren't going to be daunted from piracy, but several people in my game group have asked me for copies of PDFs. When I refused, many of them bought copies themselves. One of them searched the file-sharing groups first, but couldn't find the product. This sort of casual piracy must greatly impacts sales. It is also, unfortunately, pretty much impossible to quantify unless people are doing it over P2Ps. Even those numbers are wild and inconclusive, though they make decent guidelines.

 

[TheBadElf]

Post zapped after seeing the politics warning above .

 

[Gez]

Rather it has to do with deterrance. There are many laws in America designed to have strict punishment not to fit the crime, but to deter a crime that is difficult to pursue or prosecute.

I hope I'm not straying into politics, but harsh punishment doesn't work as a deterrant. If anything, it just incite petty criminals to move to the more serious (and dangerous) things, since they do not have much to lose anymore.

The only good deterrant against delinquancy and criminality is not the "intensity" of the punishment, but the certainty of it. If copyright infringement is just punished by a $50 fine, but you get fined every time (or at least something like 80% of times) you upload something you do not have the right to distribute on a P2P network/warez FTP server/binary newsgroup/whatever, you'll stop ASAP.

On the other hand, if the punishment is the death penalty, but there's barely a snow ball's chance on the Sun to get caught, who cares? If things goes for the worse, you'll just go on a Bonny and Clyde-like rampage, killing as many cops as possible while you flee toward South America.

That's why the watermarking may work. It certainly improves the chance of the leaker getting caught.

So, harsh punishments aren't a good deterrent and never have been. Efficient investigations techniques and zealous antipiracy cops are. The same way sueing one random schoolgirl for dozens of millions of dollars is ludicrous and useless, but fining a sum equal to the price of a couple of CDs to something like at least 75% of people who shared songs would work much better.

 

[philreed]

Warning, unnecessary and bad attempt at humor follows. Read at your own risk.

If they _really_ wanted to make the watermark effective they'd include the purchaser's credit card info. I doubt many people would load a PDF to usenet that included their name and CC info.

I better get back to moving. It's a good thing I'm not trying to work today -- the above was awful.

 

[Pinotage]

Woot! This is a good piece of news! Well done, DtRPG!

Pinotage

 

[Henry]

Time for me to get an account, now. You darned publishers, always coming up with new ways to separate me from my money (grumblegrumblegrumble)...



Seriously, glad to hear it. When they start getting it implemented, they may gain a customer in me - especially when Green Ronin starts doing its PDF releases for this year, and when Monte's Arcana Evolved gets going...

 

[Enkhidu]

For those interested in a more in depth view of how this tech works, I found this:

http://csdl.computer.org/comp/proceedings/hicss/2004/2056/04/205640094a.pdf

 

[francisca]

Watermarking is used for technical ebooks, and simply puts the name of the purchaser on each page.<snip>.

Yeah, I know what it is. I support a group of researchers here who are working on them for streaming media.

Watermarking can entail much more than a simple identifier on each page such as embedded code which causes your viewer to check in with a remote site. Not trying to raise any big brother fears here, just given the fact that they initially went with DRM, I'm taking a wait and see approach.

Digital watermarking is definitly the future for securing IP rights. No doubt about it. This is a step in the right direction for DTRPG and the industry as a whole.