D&D 4E Piracy and 4e

[Mal Malenkirk]

I would say it will be worse, but not sure that is possible. As long as you have a big company that makes even a few people angry that can scan and post pirated copies of books it will be a problem. The bigger the sales and company the more likely it is to happen. Since they have larger player bases and are far more likely to anger one of their fans. With the whole 4e and 3e rants going on and posts. i think it will be very common, likely worse than 3e is... if thats possible.

Angry fans? You think anger is the motivation for piracy? Where does that reasoning come from?

I dare say being angry at WOTC makes it less likely that you'll hand them some of your hard earned cash in order to buy one of their .pdf and then upload it. 'Ah Ah! I bought one of your books, you sucker!'

I am no psychologist but I expect the typical profile of .pdf pirate is a 15 year old with no respect for copyright, too much time on his hands and a pathological need for recognition that is satsified by a handful of strangers typing 'tx man!' in the tracker's message box.

 

[GSHamster]

Gamers are smarter than your average bear, so more of them know how to do stuff like that.

Smarter in the short run, maybe.

I once read an editorial in Scifi.ign.com (can't find it anymore, sadly) that really struck me. The editor was bemoaning the fact that scifi shows never seemed to last, and always got cancelled, while stuff like NASCAR just kept playing over and over.

He made the point that scifi/geek/gamer viewers think that they are smart, and take pride in downloading shows, skipping commercials, and sneering at commercial advertising. But we are left with cancelled show after cancelled show, while the NASCAR viewers watch the advertisements, drink their Pepsi, and enjoy their race.

 

[Dark Mistress]

Because I knew a guy that did it. He would buy books, take them home, scan them and then take them back to the store for a refund. He went to different stores all the time. Then he would post it on the web, he did it with software too. I asked him why, he typically said, cause company so and so pissed him off and he didn't think people should have to pay for their *bleep*. Since he is the only one I have ever known that did it, I was going off that.

Plus i was more talking about fans that already had the books and that got ticked off at a company more than ones buying new ones just to do it. But yes I imagine a lot of them are just young kids who just don't care.

 

[Dark Mistress]

Smarter in the short run, maybe.

I once read an editorial in Scifi.ign.com (can't find it anymore, sadly) that really struck me. The editor was bemoaning the fact that scifi shows never seemed to last, and always got cancelled, while stuff like NASCAR just kept playing over and over.

He made the point that scifi/geek/gamer viewers think that they are smart, and take pride in downloading shows, skipping commercials, and sneering at commercial advertising. But we are left with cancelled show after cancelled show, while the NASCAR viewers watch the advertisements, drink their Pepsi, and enjoy their race.

Well i did say bear, I mean bears really arn't that smart after all.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

He made the point that scifi/geek/gamer viewers think that they are smart, and take pride in downloading shows, skipping commercials, and sneering at commercial advertising. But we are left with cancelled show after cancelled show, while the NASCAR viewers watch the advertisements, drink their Pepsi, and enjoy their race.

Firefly.

Oh, the pain!

 

[Dice4Hire]

Well, I think everyone knows that 3E was very bad. Finding PDFs of WOTC's books was simple if anyone bothered to look. I'm not totally sure how bad 3rd party stuff was, but I assume just as bad.

In truth some of this could have been alleviated in WOTC's part if they had sold pdf copies at a reasonable discount (to me, about 50%). When you see them at the exact same price as the paper version (actually more expensive due to Amazon discounts) it seems like WOTC is ignoring the whole pfd situation out there.

Yes, illegal copies are wrong, but some kind of incentive to not download illegally is just common sense.

I think 4E will be just as bad as 3.X.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Because I knew a guy that did it. He would buy books, take them home, scan them and then take them back to the store for a refund. He went to different stores all the time. Then he would post it on the web, he did it with software too. I asked him why, he typically said, cause company so and so pissed him off and he didn't think people should have to pay for their *bleep*. Since he is the only one I have ever known that did it, I was going off that.

Unless he was the only person in the world willing to take the time to scan and upload these particular books, then this guy is a moron.

Think of the number of hours wasted on scanning these damn books. And why? There were probably twenty other different scans of the same books available.

He makes the 15 year old kid who does this to feel cool seem smart.

At least the kid is not entirely wrong about having made a smattering of people mildly grateful toward him. Your guy is deluding himself into thinking the hours he put in into his pet project mattered in the big picture.

Tell him hi for me if you see him again.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Ahem. From Less Scrupulous Friends I know, the most recent 3.5 books are hard to find pirated copies for. City of Stormreach, Elder Evils, etc etc. This is also true of Paizo; a Pathfinder issue may be pirated months after it's released. But that's what I'm told.

Which means - they're less coveted among pirates - even pirates wait for 4E!

I.e. the more successful something is, the more often it gets pirated. The less demand, the less piracy (but I don't deny that piracy hurts in terms of sale losses, though some pirates would never touch a book, if they couldn't pirate it).

Cheers, LT.

 

[Kzach]

There are parts of the internet that are black, don't show up on search engines or spiders, have no Domain Name or footprint of DNS servers. They can only be accessed with a direct IP connection and an invite, I've already seen a few low-quality pirated scans of 4e on some of these places. Remember the books are being printed in China a place where digital piracy is rampant.

Darn. I haven't been able to find anything and I've looked.

Oh, don't get high and mighty with me. I've pre-ordered all three core books and the adventure module. It's just that I want to play NOW

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Darn. I haven't been able to find anything and I've looked.

Oh, don't get high and mighty with me. I've pre-ordered all three core books and the adventure module. It's just that I want to play NOW

You aren't missing anything the resolution was very bad, full of artifacts and noise. These are places you need to be invited to find because they don't show up on searches, that's why they're there.