Illegal PDFs

[Psionicist]

Here's the latest:

My e-mail: This is no longer my problem. It has been determined that you are stealing not only the PDFs/products in the item # above but are also offering other disks of
stolen material. You have been reported and the proper authorities are now dealing with your theft of copyrighted material.

From wikipedia:

Copyright infringement is the unauthorized use of copyrighted material in a manner that violates one of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works that build upon it.

For electronic and audio-visual media, unauthorized reproduction and distribution is often referred to as piracy or theft (an early reference was made by Alfred Tennyson in the preface to his poem 'The Lover's Tale' in 1879 where he mentions that sections of this work "have of late been mercilessly pirated".) However there is no legal basis for this and indeed in one US copyright lawsuit the judge ordered the plaintiff's legal team to stop using the term.

Stolen refers to theft, and copyright infrignement is not theft.

 

[Bobitron]

Good luck with your quest to get this resolved, Phil. I appreciate you putting the effort into it, I know how I would feel to find my intellectual property up for grabs in that manner.

 

[Roudi]

Reported. This is disgusting.

I'm almost tempted to win the bid myself, but give negative feedback once I "realize" how much copyrighted material the item contains. And then demand my money back.

I think it's really sad that some people don't realize... there are others who make their LIVING in this industry. Making things "free for everyone" is a noble goal, but it doesn't put food on the table. Plus, I believe talented work deserves to be paid for, most of the time (for the rest of the time, that talented work can make it's way to MODERNIZED, please).

 

[DonTadow]

Interesting.

First of all, I'm sort of pro-file sharing. I think it's wrong to make a living of others work, that is sell or otherwise make money of downloaded material, but but I don't think it's wrong when I for example download TV-series episodes before (_if_) they are aired where I live (Sweden). For example, the show Numb3rs. Seemed to be an interesting show so I downloaded the first few episodes. I liked it, called one of our larger TV channels... and now they show it here too. Another example, I'm pretty ashamed of this, is Lord of the Rings. I hadn't read the book, downloaded FoTR... Now I own the three EE DVD:s, two versions of the book series, one of them leather bound, and a couple of history books such as Silmarillion and The Complete Guide To Middle-Earth.

And before you call me a cheap I bought 5 DVD:s and 1 computer game this month, and that's not a rare occasion.

My point? Nothing is black and white. Not even "piracy".

I can't lie, I know alot of people abuse file sharing. There are probably a small percent of people like you (and me) who will buy products. I buy 100 bucks forth of d and d material a month. I never download third party material as its against my code of ethics of helping the little guy. But WOTC material I always download before I buy. They just pour out too much stuff for all of it to be good. I'll be the first to say I am cheap and conscious of my decisions. Plus its easier for me to say hey i'm running a yuanti encoutner tommorrow i'll download the ancient kingdoms book as opposed to me driving 20 miles to the store to pick it up for a one time use. I"m also lazy.

I'll download a song and not buy the album if i only like the song. I'll download an album and won't buy an album if i dont like it.

This society is the problem with downloading. We've let corporate america buy up the country lock stock and barrel. Instead of adapting to new technology as we did prior to the 80s, we've changed laws to make sure this new technology does not change the old ways. The music industry is the biggest culprit.

I don't think it makes you abad person, you're just on the other side of the issue.

But this guy is wrong. He's profitting off of others work and putting a bad name to the argument. He's flat out showing industries why file sharing is a problem. So long as stores like rpgnow and drivethroughrpg become popular I don't see the pdf stealing problem growing as bad as the music sharing problem (legal music download sites still charge the same price for an album or song as if you bought it in the store wheras pdfs are usually 33 to 50 percent cheaper than their hard material counterpart which seems fair).

 

[philreed]

From wikipedia:

Stolen refers to theft, and copyright infrignement is not theft.

For every illegal copy of the PDF in question sold I lose $5. $5 may not sound like much but it adds up.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I only wanted to make one damn sale to get my money back

70+ PDF copies? $10.50?

He's going to get his money back from 70+ copies with $10.50? How is that possible?

Well, unless he bought the PDF lot from someone else for $10.50. And didn't report it. But at least his intentions are good right?

if I'm going to be called a thief and prosecuted like one I should actually do something. Like make everything available to everyone free of charge.

Whoops! Guess not. But my favorite line comes last.

And to think all you had to do was ask nicely.

This kills me. First, this applies just as much to him. If he was willling to just take his stuff down, he wouldn't have been reported. Second, after trying to commit copyright infringement, I'm somehow supposed to believe he'll never do it again just because someone says "pretty please". He even states that he's more than willing to actively distribute the files. What a tool.

Finally, should I be relieved or insulted that my pdf didn't make the list?

 

[Psionicist]

For every illegal copy of the PDF in question sold I lose $5. $5 may not sound like much but it adds up.

I'm not against you Phil, this is exactly the kind of file "sharing" I'm against. If I had an ebay account I'd report the guy ( http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/replica-counterfeit.html ).

But... What if I buy your PDF and email a copy to my grandmother, who don't know what a role playing game is let alone how to read a PDF file? That is technically an illegal copy, but I don't see how you lose your $5 here.

Anyhow, sorry if I dragged this slightly off-topic, but I know from experience most people not interested in a subject will spend at most a few minutes to base an opinion on it, and stick with it. Most ENWorlders not interested in copyright will read this and add a mental note that fileshering equals evil, when that is not completely true (higher MHZ is not a good computer for example, or a small camera is not a better camera). I once found myself arguing against petrol tax. I dont have a car, but one of my friends mentioned why he disliked it a year or so ago. Influence and all that.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Phil, why don't you contact some of the others who have books on there? Jason Parent (Hellhound) @ Natural 20/EN Publishing, Clark @ Necromancer (he's a lawyer, I believe), Chris Pramas @ Green Ronin, Joseph Goodman @ Goodman games, etc. Monte might even be interested, as a few of his WotC books are on the list.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

But... What if I buy your PDF and email a copy to my grandmother, who don't know what a role playing game is let alone how to read a PDF file? That is technically an illegal copy, but I don't see how you lose your $5 here.

This is a good example of sharing supporting a product. However, you are in a minority. I lurked on a few D&D warez forums when working up how I wanted to do security for my pdf. Out of three or four dozen people over a period of about a month, I never saw one mention of any effort to support the companies or authors of the products they "shared". In one case, WotC had a release out and people were complaining that nobody had scanned the book on the day of release. From that, I simply have a very hard time believing that the overwhelming majority of file sharers have any other intention than to get books for free.

 

[Teflon Billy]

I dropped off a report as well. Everyone should make a quick report.

Done