Is it OK to distribute others' OGC for free?

[Poster Bard]

Lol... too funny.

Seriously though, that index thingie is the best thing since sliced bread and you guys are making my current "secret project X-13" (which isn't much of a secret these days) go much quicker.

Chuck

Thanks, Chuck!

With the SRD 3.5 Revised from Creative Mountain Games on your hard drive, you're handsome, clever, and you sing well, too!

 

[Belen]

Marketing and Free Labor

You guys are looking at all this the wrong way. Cergorach is actually offering a prime service that publishers can use for their advantage. Publishers cannot stop the e-movement. I work in publishing and I handle permissions every day. I am in the position of granting permission for people to reprint our copyrighted work and we have no OGL folks.

Instead of seeing the negative, look at the very bright, shiny nugget here.

1.) Cergorach is marketing for you. I am sure that, as a coutesy, he woud not mind asking permission to reprint. The publisher can say "Sure, can you add our logo and a brief statement like Reproduced from the Book of the Righteous 2001:18-25 with permission from Green Ronin Publishing.

2.) Free Labor- Suddenly there is someone organizing an SRD of your work and you do not have to pay them for it! Heck, he may even update it to 3.5 for free and you can use that as your own and did not have to pay for it.

3.) Linking- Link to it! Embrace the person who has used your work and cross market. It is a really awesome way for people to see your stuff. They may not buy the PDF that has that OGC in it, but not all your stuff will be there and they may go and buy other things.

Honestly, this could be a boon in disguise.

 

[smetzger]

And when we take steps to protect our work, we can also say "we're not breaking the rules".

Again using one of my own books as an example instead of speaking for others, Blood and Guts involved about 200+ hours of research for its crunch.

If someone wants to base new rules off that work, THAT is the point of the license and I heartily commend them. If they just want to take my work and regurgitate it, what am I supposed to do?

"THAT" is not the point of the license. The point of the license is to sell more PHBs.

With the OGL the only things you can really do is try to cripple your OGC or suck it up. I would also say that you could ask someone who is distilling your OGC to add a more prominent (than section 15) blurb about your product and how the user can buy the product (remember thats not legal to do under the OGL w/o your permission).

I can feel your pain a bit if someone regurgitates your work. I didn't dedicate 200+ hrs but I did dedicate a significant amount of time to developing feats for the netBook of Feats and then Mongoose published the Ultimate Feats Book and made money off of my work. I didn't complain about them not asking for my permission, they didn't have to. (I did complain that they didn't designate OGC correctly but thats another matter).

 

[Vigilance]

I might be missing the baby amongt the bathwater Belen, but I think you don't realize how different doing something like this to a PDF is than doing it to a printed book.

When people reprint the OGC from a print work it doesn't seriously damage the printed books sales unless it is done very quickly. Since most print books do the majority of their sales in the first 3 months. But also of course there is the reason that PDFs don't outsell print books to begin with- people *like* print books more.

However with a PDF, which is electronic to begin with (so the issue of print preference is out) and which sells much fewer copies, and basically relies on its ability to stay evergreen to be profitable, you're really looking at a different scenario.

Chuck

 

[hong]

People, PLEASE regurgitate my work. I'm asking you. I'm wanting you.


Hong "I'm not cheap, I'm free!" Ooi

 

[Cergorach]

I don't understand why this matters at all. Is the idea to keep PDF publishers operating at a very low lifestyle?

1.) I haven't used anything from a pdf publisher for my OGC assimilation.
2.) There's currently nothing on my list 'to-do' from a pdf publisher for my OGC assimilation.
3.) I might in the future add something from a pdf publisher to my OGC assimilation. If i do, i'll try to be as uninvasive as possible.

Let me be blunt again:

You are not trying to contribute anything to existing OGC. All you want to do is compile and release existing OGC for free. This is perfectly legal and if you want to do it all I ask is that you follow the OGL correctly. Just be prepared for the effects of such actions.

Yes i am, if the lucas arts lawyers come calling to my door, i'm sure they'll see reason.

If you were willing to contribute completely new OGC -- of an amount equal to that you're trying to use for reasons I cannot understand -- you would find fewer arguments. There would still be arguments but at least you would then become a contributor and not just a cut and paste expert with Acrobat.

I intend to contribute, but not right now.
The cut/paste expert remark... You obviously don't have a clue how much work OCRing a print book is (and not having it riddled with spelling errors).

Releasing OGC for free devalues that work and all future work. It should be the decision of the original publisher to make whether the OGC is available free online.

I find that releasing OS for free only increases the value to the user for that and all future works.

You are not Robin Hood. You are not stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. You're stealing from the industry and helping to drive creators from the industry.

I'm not!?!? But... *looks at avatar* But... The beard... The hat...

 

[Numion]

Are these extreme possibilities? Yes, very. But then, we're dealing with a large corporation and it's our responsibility to make them feel secure enough to release new OGC. It's not their responsibility to do so.

Yes, quite extreme indeed. But don't you think that they know what they are doing better than most people on this thread, since 90% of their most popular products are freely available on the net, and have been for 4 years?

We don't need to tiptoe around the license. We need to take it at face value, and let the publishers decide what to release under it. Extensive reliance on gentlemans agreement can only postpone whatever bad consequences you think there might be. I don't believe there are any, FWIW.

 

[Vigilance]

"THAT" is not the point of the license. The point of the license is to sell more PHBs.

With the OGL the only things you can really do is try to cripple your OGC or suck it up.

Agreed its not the point of the license.

However, its not true that crippling OGC (which I don't want to do) or sucking it up are my only options.

I also have the option to go back to being a retail manager (where I made a lot more money) or dusting off my teaching certificate (where I would make more money) or going back to running the night register at the local convenience store (where I ALSO made more money- depressing a thought as that is).

However, I naively think that if a bunch of us went back to doing our old jobs, that this would be a bad thing for the majority of the gaming public.

Chuck

 

[philreed]

The cut/paste expert remark... You obviously don't have a clue how much work OCRing a print book is (and not having it riddled with spelling errors).

Not true at all. One of the things I did when I worked in the ag industry was scanning and OCRing press releases and articles. This was between 1995-1999 during which time I probably did this with about 5,000,000 words.

I have quite a bit of experience at this sort of thing.

 

[Vigilance]

Yes, quite extreme indeed. But don't you think that they know what they are doing better than most people on this thread, since 90% of their most popular products are freely available on the net, and have been for 4 years?

We don't need to tiptoe around the license. We need to take it at face value, and let the publishers decide what to release under it. Extensive reliance on gentlemans agreement can only postpone whatever bad consequences you think there might be. I don't believe there are any, FWIW.

Surely Numion you can see the difference between an SRD of a printed book and posting the OGC of a book being sold in electronic format?

A big reason why the SRD doesn't hurt sales of the PHB is because people like books.

The only difference between a free PDF and one that costs money is... well... the price.

Chuck