Pirating RPGs. (And were not talking "arggg" pirate stuff here.)
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Turjan said:
Well the page is blank as it starts to load a page https://www.drivethrurpg.com/catalog/logoff.php which apears to be empty as it starts to load https://www.drivethrurpg.com/catalog/logoff.php which is empty and it starts to load a page... It might be netscape (older version) but no can do. Work machine so can't update. Other alternative is IE and I use it only with intranet pages and a handfull of other sites I do want to use and needs cookies&scripts which are enabled on that. In netscape I have disable cookies&java script for tighter security. But that is not mine our anyone elses problem (execept DTRGP as lost customer) as long as I can live without DTRPG.
Izerath said:
IANAL, just a student of it.
Obviously it depends on your jurisdiction.
In China, copyright infringement is a capital crime prosecuted by the state. The rather onerous punishment was required by the US during WTO negotiations. Unless the publication is banned or involves cultural legends. In other words, the publisher can take it to the police.
In most European jurisdictions and Canada publishers are entitled to a cut of the blank media levy. In practice, the music trade associations misappropriate the funds and never cut in other publishers. You should be able to get recompense from the levy fund based on some complex formula, but good luck.
Last I checked, P2P distribution was legal in Canada under certain circumstances. There has been lobbying by US firms to change this. You can sue but the burden of proof is likely to be substantial.
England, New Zealand, and a number of other Commonwealth members have a crown copyright with special rules. I don't remember the details but I would guess the Queen can pirate your works if she wants and lock you up in the Tower of London if you disagree.
As of January 2003, US works legally have no copyright protection in Iran, Ethiopia, Nepal, North Korea, and about a dozen other countries. Assuming it is legal for nationals of said countries to access your works to begin with, it is perfectly legal for them to do whatever the heck they please with your work, including redistributing it to individuals in other nations (where the work is otherwise protected). That's one reason why many trading hubs operate in "obscure" countries (though most effective hubs operate in Western European countries where the practice is illegal but enforcement is negligible). I suspect this means you do nothing unless you live there.
Artists living in countries that are signatories of the Berne Convention have non-transferable moral rights that are enforced in Europe and largely ignored (and routinely violated) in the US. If you're an artist, you can sue a publisher who tampers with your artistic vision by inserting four pages of ads.
I suspect it will be a difficult case to win but am utterly ignorant of the individual signatory implementations.There is no penalty for falsely placing a copyright notice on works that are not protected by copyright in the USA. It is illegal in other jurisdictions (for example, fair trading acts in Commonwealth countries would generally apply in such a case). Look at the weasel words in Penguin Classics for a good example. If you're a publisher of such works, you have no recourse.
Russian law is currently written in such a way that only physical copies are subject to copyright law - it basically does not recognize the existence of digital works. This was why the case against AllOfMp3.com was dismissed earlier this year. In Russia, it's not copyright infringement until your PDF hits the printer (then it becomes a physical copy subject to normal sanctions). If you're a publisher you may be able to get the US to apply pressure on the Kremlin, but don't hold your breath. As a practical matter you probably have little to no recourse, though your case is stronger if you're a print publisher.
Frankly copyright law with regards to digital works is still evolving. It's not likely to be settled for another 20 years, given the usual pace of the courts. For example, under one theory of law, reading a work from the hard disk creates an unauthorized copy in memory. Even then, it may simply move offshore with the banking and gambling.
Ultimately, your best bet is to find a business model that does not depend on digital distribution for revenue. See Cory Doctorow, Larry Lessig, O'Reilly Publishing, and Baen Books for examples of successful print publishers who give digital copies away.
Would you rather be pirated or ignored? As an author and musician, I'd much rather be famous and poor than rich and unknown. That's just me.
Putting my money where my mouth is, you can listen to my CD tracks for free at CD Baby, and while I can't guarantee my label won't come after you (stupid industry contract!) for making copies I would rather you listen to it for nothing and remember my name than let it languish in obscurity because it's too expensive/restrictive. Hopefully in a couple of years I can convince them to re-release under a Creative Commons license.
I'm also going to be publishing three PDFs later this year for free, all of which I could put up on RPGNow for a few dollars. There will be no restrictions on distribution and I'll put them on P2P myself. I'll let you know how it turns out.
Theft - illegal permanently depriving a person of an item of property
Piracy - illegal seizing of a ship at sea, or seizing the contents of the ship
Copyright infringement - reproducing a literary or artistic work contrary to copyright law (being without authorisation and not being a legally permitted reproduction)
Piracy - illegal seizing of a ship at sea, or seizing the contents of the ship
Copyright infringement - reproducing a literary or artistic work contrary to copyright law (being without authorisation and not being a legally permitted reproduction)
S'mon said:The USA required the death penalty for copyright infringement? Wow...
Historically China has had very lax IP laws by Western standards. Sharing is pretty integral to Chinese culture; the new laws are rarely enforced and I'm not aware of the sentence actually being carried out.
But, yes, as a precondition of WTO membership the US insisted most firmly that infringers be sentenced to death. I don't know whether to be more depressed about the request or the compliance with said request.
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