Monster Manual 2: How long before the pirated copy appears?

[Arivendel]

Besides its kinda fun to see how the difference now is not 1-2 days but simply 7-8 I noticed a Torrent early on Monday 25th which is kinda late Sunday 24 for some (me living in +8 GMT) so its more like between 5-8 days i think.

 

[munkeywrench]

i can confirm that this particular scan took 5 days after official release to get out. it appeared on the internet late afternoon on may 25th. the reason it seems longer is that these things need to propagate. one person uploads it somewhere obscure and only 10 people will download it. 2 of those 10 re-upload it someplace less obscure and each have 20 people download it. those downloaders then re-up to torrent sites and the like and then thousands download it. it's interesting to watch because it actually starts out as a very slow burn, but then eventually turns into a wildfire.

another factor, mentioned before, in getting the pirate copy of a book out is how much people care about the book. Not many really give a hoot about E1 Death's Reach, so no one is really taking the time to scan it. Scanning is slow and BORING! I worked at a library one summer archiving books using the same methods the pirates use, at it takes about 45-60 seconds to scan 1 page. Then, add anywhere from 1-2 additional hours for additional processing. the pirates either need to have no lives, or wait until they have a fat chunk of time to kill

personally, I think pirate copies will come out sooner and sooner as the pirates refine their techniques for scanning (faster, more efficient, lower size, etc).

 

[Oompa]

Well it's on a main torrent site, the quality is good and will get better..

So if wizards could just re-open the pdf stores..

 

[MrMyth]

So, 7 days. Not really stopping piracy at all. Just hurting the honest customers.

"That's real good customer service/pr work there Lou!"

Well, stopping it from being available to pirates the day of release means they will likely get a good number of first week sales from those who really want it right away.

...that said, the logical conclusion would thus be to release electronic copies a week after the print books, since that is around when scanned copies seem to be showing up anyway...

 

[nightwyrm]

another factor, mentioned before, in getting the pirate copy of a book out is how much people care about the book. Not many really give a hoot about E1 Death's Reach, so no one is really taking the time to scan it. Scanning is slow and BORING! I worked at a library one summer archiving books using the same methods the pirates use, at it takes about 45-60 seconds to scan 1 page. Then, add anywhere from 1-2 additional hours for additional processing. the pirates either need to have no lives, or wait until they have a fat chunk of time to kill

personally, I think pirate copies will come out sooner and sooner as the pirates refine their techniques for scanning (faster, more efficient, lower size, etc).

Or, the pirates can just break the spine of their books and feed the book to scanner with a page feeder.

 

[Scribble]

Here are my questions about said scan that showed up 7 days later:

1. How large is the file?

2. Is the text selectable or is it just a picture pdf of the book?

3. If text selectable: is the OCR quality good?


The reason I ask is because I don't think the poilicy was intended to stop all pirating of their books. Only to stop providing pirates with the high quality file to pirate.

 

[tmatk]

-Deleted, sorry-

 

[Piratecat]

Heads up. As you folks know, discussing piracy on these boards as never been allowed. We're really uncomfortable with these threads even without links, and may well decide that their better suited for a different venue such as Circvs Maximvs. We're discussing the matter.

 

[Oompa]

Here are my questions about said scan that showed up 7 days later:

1. How large is the file?

2. Is the text selectable or is it just a picture pdf of the book?

3. If text selectable: is the OCR quality good?


The reason I ask is because I don't think the poilicy was intended to stop all pirating of their books. Only to stop providing pirates with the high quality file to pirate.

1. Around 95 MB, same as first scans from AP, will get smaller.

2. Selectabble Text

3. What is OCR? Book is searchable and all pages are readable, no cut offs..

 

[Oompa]

E1 - Death's Reach

55 mb, selectable text and search able, no cut offs..