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

[Nisarg]

I has nothing to do with danger. 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. Hate crimes is a good example. Murder is murder. But if you murder someone because thay are of a different race, you will find yourself in prison for a significantly longer period of time in most states. In other states, you may be more likely to suffer capital punishment for such a crime. Much of this is common law, but it is a well-accepted practice in the American justice system.

I hope this doesn't end up being interepreted as a political post, but i find this threat of persecution disturbing when it is combined with the fact that copywrites are being extended into infinity, and corporations are doing their damndest to make sure NOTHING ever ends up public domain again.

As an issue, whether political or legal or what have you, it is not clear cut. Copyright was intended to give the creator of a work the chance to make fair profit from his intellectual property, not to end up permanently hampering distribution of a work. That's why it used to be that copyright would expire about 15 years after the original author was dead. Now a trust made up of the authors descendants (at best, or just a managing corporation with no direct connection to the author, at worst) can keep churning profits from the copyright for 75 years, and rising. So if you add to that the risk that people will actually be put in prison for sharing a .pdf it becomes very disturbing, to me at least.

Nisarg

 

[Nisarg]

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.

Hehe... I fled to South America.

Nisarg
Writing from Montevideo, Uruguay

 

[Castellan]

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.

You know.... If a content-provider properly disclosed to customers that personal information would be embedded into the document, they might be less likely to share with friends, or put that content up on a P2P network. Arguably, this is what a watermark does, but credit card info would probably be a much stronger deterrent, since any given customer would immediately understand the personal consequences to file sharing...

I'm sure there's a virtual Pandora's Box of troubles with the idea, but it's an interesting idea.

 

[Castellan]

Question--if watermarking is so effective, why isn't this technology used at say--RPGNow?

I suspect that RPGNow's biggest piracy-deterrent is price. They're providing valuable content at a price point so attractive that filesharing is a waste of time. Most people inherently put a value on their time, even if they aren't consciously aware of what that value is.

RPGNow charges very reasonable prices for the PDF downloads. In contrast, the act of searching P2P networks, trying to download, waiting for the whole thing, and then having to check to see if the document is worth keeping just isn't worth it for something you could get for $3.99 with instant download. With RPGNow's prices, even kids with a small allowance from their parents can afford to get something every once in awhile (granted, they need permission, yadda, yadda, yadda... but I think the point is still valid).

DriveThruRPG has a good many PDFs that I would love to download, and I'm more inclined to do so now that DRM is being phased out (I still won't buy anything on the site that has DRM included), but price is still a major issue. I might buy something that I can't find in print (either locally or on, say, Amazon.com) but as long as a PDF is the same price as the printed work, I'd rather have the hard copy.

Still, kudos to DTRPG. This is a major step in the right direction, and I applaud their efforts to reach out to me as a potential customer. I will be paying closer attention to them from now on.

 

[Thanee]

Yay! Victory to reason!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Man-thing]

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.

Actually. eReader.com a source of ebooks for palm devices uses a format similar except everybook is initially locked with you credit card and name. So if you did illegally share it you would have to provide that to the user as well. Otherwise they couldn't open it.

 

[Estlor]

One reason RPGNow doesn't really need to resort to using one of these more elaborate protection schemes for it's PDF material is because the bulk of releases through them are smaller publishers with lower demand for their product.

Go on a file sharing program and search for any WotC product (and some of the bigger D20 studios, like S&SS, Malhavoc, or Green Ronin) and chances are pretty good that you'll not only find it, but you won't have to wait in much of a queue to download it. Now search for something like Elements of Magic Revised (excellent product, by the way) and you probably won't even get a single hit for it.

The amount of time you'd have to invest to pirate the small-press PDFs on RPGNow is so great that, once you factor in opportunity cost, it's cheaper just to buy it.

 

[jujutsunerd]

Hmm. Now that they're selling uncripppled pdf's I might actually have to buy something...
Though I do wonder about the pricing policies of some companies. No way is a pdf worth as much as the printed product, even if it's not crippled. 50%, perhaps even 75% of the printed book would be kind of high, but not entirely unreasonable. The convenience of being able to cut and paste/print exactly the bit I need has some value, but that is offset by having to print it out before reading it away from the computer. IMNSVHO.

 

[Henry]

No way is a pdf worth as much as the printed product, even if it's not crippled.

However, not all the DTRPG vendors are selling it for that much. A bunch are selling PDF's for more realistic levels, especially where those products are PDF-only. Even if it were 50% of the price, it might be worth it to me. I'd prefer lower, of course, but I could take up to that.

 

[Dimwhit]

This is cool news, but I have a question. Suppose my computer is hacked (because, you know, there is a huge hacker demand for RPG PDFs). Now my PDF with my name watermarked in it is out there, through no fault of my own.

Seems like I'd be as screwed in that instance as I would if I illegally shared it...