Piracy

[Nightson]

I two answers I was mainly curious about when I started the poll was the people who downloaded, liked the books but didn't buy them and the ones who did buy them.

Of course the question is how much can we trust a non statistical self reported poll? Well, not very far, but it might mean that for every person who downloads the books and never buys a copy, there's two people who do end up buying copies of the books, which makes me happy.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Actuall selling a pdf for the price of a printed book can be called robbery as mp3s sold for the price of a CD...

the Production cost is about 0, tthe cost for putting them on the internet is also quite low...

I would never pay 30$ for a book i own as pdf

WotCs idea to distribute the pdfs for a low price to people who have bought the printed books was great. A shame they dropped the idea. The best action against piracy is reasonable pricing of digital products...

 

[Thanee]

I just bought H1 and the Gift Set, when they were available, to take a look (ok, flipped through the books in the FLGS a bit before buying them).

I prefer actual books to PDFs, anyways.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Jack99]

Actuall selling a pdf for the price of a printed book can be called robbery as mp3s sold for the price of a CD...

the Production cost is about 0, tthe cost for putting them on the internet is also quite low...

This has been covered several times. I am sure you think you are right, but this is simply not the case.

Shipping and printing of D&D books are only a small percentage of the cost of making the book. If you sell pdf's cheaply, you risk losing money because people buy the pdf instead of the book.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

I use pirate and piracy when talking about unauthorized copying, its long established and fighting its use is pointless.

The obfuscated 'copyright infringement" terminology is like saying "commit homicide" or something. It puts emotional distance so people can avoid morality or ethics or something. (Note: your own ethics or morals may vary.)

By fighting this lost battle still, people lose sight of the real one, that IP piracy is not theft!

People are not stealing anything when you break these laws. They are violating the law, arguably they cause some economic harm.

 

[JohnRTroy]

The thing I don't get about the whole "right to preview" thing is this.

Many video games have free download-ready demos available.
Nowadays, many books have preview chapters and table of contents indexes.

I don't think the "right to preview" involves being able to read the ENTIRE book or listen to the ENTIRE CD or watch the ENTIRE DVD or play the ENTIRE game.

The problem with doing that is, while torrent advocates say "the fact that someone downloaded doesn't mean they'd have bought it". That's true, but there is a truism that "donation ware" or "tip jars" bring in less money than a fixed price. If people wrongfully rip off books, then make it available to everybody, even though it's illegal and wrong--with the moral obsfucation and justification going on, young people think it's okay to do that or they're fighting the "big companies"--it will lead to more people using the free option.

George Carlin talked about "euphemistic language", how Shell Shock became Post-Traumatic Stress disorder. Even though there's some moral outrage about us using the terms "theft" and "piracy"--my gut level tells me the more blunt and critical term is the one to use. Trying to turn it around and say "how dare you compare it to life and death crimes" misses the point.

Whatever you call it, illegally downloading stuff that's protected and is meant to be sold flies in the face of millennia of legal, moral, and ethical precedents--from the "Thou Shall Not Steal/Covet" commandments, to the "Golden Rule", to how the world treats white-collar crime like embezzlement. I don't think anything the "big corporations" have done compares to the simple fact that taking stuff that is meant to be paid for, that some people worked very hard to produce, just because it's possible and it "can't be stopped", is wrong.

 

[scruffygrognard]

The problem with only having free, preview material available is that it (of course) only provides a limited picture of the product.

It's a shame that WotC can't release full book previews that expire and don't have print functionality. That way their customers can make informed decisions on products before going out and buying them.

 

[roguerouge]

I can't say I'm surprised at the number of people testing out the game before deciding to buy. File sharing's a lot like radio in the era of cassette tapes. With a little patience you could sample an album for free and you could even get a copy of it for your use. But if you actually liked the music, you'd go buy the record so that you could have a copy without the noise (tape hiss, DJ talking over the beginning and end of the song, etc.).

Similarly, with file sharing, you end up wanting to buy for the book's convenience, you have to search for a copy that's complete and uncorrupted, etc. And, oh, how the record industry ranted against cassette piracy and how it was ruining the industry! (While Sony was selling those very same blank cassettes!)

File sharing's got some advantages for the cultural producer over radio: with radio, you had to pay to get radio play. (Today, it costs roughly 400 grand to get national air play for a song.) And, of course, it's easier to sample a wider variety of indie products through file sharing than with radio play (or Barnes and Noble shelf space).

Of course, it must be said: If you download, use, and never buy gaming materials, may you be covered with boils in your most sensitive areas. It's not like you're striking a blow against the MAN, the way you might be with Time Warner or GE. Piracy against a tiny division of Hasbro is the cultural piracy equivalent of purse snatching: lame and hardly the work of a criminal mastermind.

 

[xechnao]

I don't think the "right to preview" involves being able to read the ENTIRE book or listen to the ENTIRE CD or watch the ENTIRE DVD or play the ENTIRE game.

It has to do with the type of value being offered. If it is about a 2h film that its value is about the show it offers, it beats it watching the whole show. But if it is about a car or some professional software you need a full demonstration of what it can do and what it cant do at 100%. If it is about a game you need to fully demonstrate gameplay and its rules. Because the utility of the rules is where the value stands. Was there a demo for 4e? If I remember correctly there were some character sheets and some basic rules. I guess those were enough to preview the game.
Also:
Many people buy the hobby books because of their collective value. Many of them need to browse the artistic qualities of such books. To see the art. To see if they like it. Was there a demo of such a thing? I also believe it was. So I believe you have a point...
Yet:
If there was not a chance at browsing the whole book fewer people would decide to buy it in the end: mostly those that were already convinced about the possibility of the purchase. Instead, those who had not thought about buying it will tend to think more about purchasing it if they can browse the whole book. There is some strange psychology at work here.
There is also another class of client: the one who needs to know what new knowledge or information may lie in there to discover. If this client has a chance to browse the whole book you could probably lose a sale than gain one -especially if he is not impressed to the point of needing to collect such an item or convinced to use it or even wanting to reward the creator. But is it ok to try to selling things to someone's curiosity? Besides, if I am not wrong I believe there is some copyright provision due to accademic reasons or something like that.

 

[Memona]

I pirate every book before I buy it. If I like it, I buy it. If I don't like it, I don't buy it. While pdfs are great, but you know, it does not do me any good considering I can bring them to the table. Sure, I could bring a tabletap but it does not have the same feel or atmosphere.

In this respect, I consider piracy a good thing for me and the industry I help support. If I never pirated 4e, I would have never bought it. Pretty simple.