Pirating RPGs. (And were not talking "arggg" pirate stuff here.)

[drothgery]

A few things: 1) software and rpg material are not good analogs. There is no secondary income derived from free rpg material as there is from Linux. 2) How many open source success stories are there, anyway? I only know of one.

There pretty much aren't open source success stories. There are a handful of large, widely used open source projects, but the vast majority of development on those projects is funded by large corporations with other revenue streams. And there are some companies that have been modestly successful selling services or support or customization or add-ons to open source software (and using that to fund development of the core).

 

[Psion]

Why?

Why? Because it's really not that simple.

"Either you own it or you don't"? Okay, what defines ownership? Even starting with that basic definition, you could come up with dozens of takes on not only ownership of physical property alone. Getting into the hoary subject of "intellectual property" makes the situation even worse. What makes something as intangible as an idea yours? Really, the only thing that enforces respect for something as intangible as an idea is a feeling of respect towards you for your contribution and a legal enforcement of the same. What exactly that entitles you to is far from ut and dried, either legally or ethically. If I think of something similar to you, why do you get precedence? But at the same time, don't you deserve some recompense for your work?

Indeed, if there is an incredible claim here, it is that the situation is dichotomous; I'd like to see your justification for why you think it is so.

 

[interwyrm]

Yes, most people downloading free material don't actually use it. That's why pirated copies don't translate to lost sales.

I will confess to being guilty of being a p2p archivist. A while ago I tried to download every tsr product ever made. Have I read all of them? No. Have I read even 10% of them? Probably not. If they were available for sale would I have bought all of them? Absolutely not.

However, something positive came out of it that I think could come out of any p2p. I read some of the planescape books. I found them so incredibly cool that I would actually shell out money to get a copy of some of those books.

Pre-downloading days, the only rpg companies I knew of were wotc and palladium. Piracy has raised my awareness of other companies like green ronin and mongoose. I never would have bought anything from either of those companies if I didn't even know about them.

I think people need to take a step back and think about the good things that piracy brings to the market. It is free advertising. I think that it is entirely plausible that whatever a company loses in sales due to people downloading a product when they would have otherwise bought it, is made up by the increased awareness of the product and the creation of new fans.

Think of it this way, you have a consumer pool. A certain percentage will never pay for your product and always download it illegally (I realize this percentage is likely not static). When a product becomes widely downloaded, it increases the consumer pool, which may increase sales.

I think that the most effective method of quelling p2p distribution would be to take no countermeasures, except writing a little note on one of the first pages saying, if you like and use this product and acquired it without paying, please consider showing the authors a little appreciation by buying it.

The resulting guilt trip would have a much better effect IMO than offering a challenge to pirates.

 

[Psion]

There pretty much aren't open source success stories.

Let me guess: you don't work in the computing industry, do you?

 

[drothgery]

Ever seen this thread: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=106049 ?
It appears that an awful lot of people donated money to EN World . . . to the tune of over $13,000. I don't know if everyone that donated got something out of it, but I'm sure many people would have donated without getting anything in return.

So the largest, and most active d20 RPG site was able to generate less than $1 per user from voluntary donations, and you think this can be the basis for a viable economic model?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Taking something that doesn't belong to you is wrong - that fact that there's a law attached to it simply reinforces society's stand on the issue.

Unfortunately, this concept of "belonging," of ownership, is based in specific cultural norms that segments of society are trying to change today.

I'm reminded of the dichotomy between the settlers in America and the Natives. Manhattan was sold for a few beads because there was no concept of ownership of an area of space (except maybe what was enclosed by your tent). It was utterly bizzarre that people would think of land as something you could buy, sell, trade, and negotiate for.

Today, there are those who have come to the belief that it is utterly bizzarre that people could own ideas, concepts, and terms. Virgin records has attempted to copyright the word "Virgin." Leo Stoller claims to own the words "stealth" and "freedom of expression." If I have to pay some guy to use the term "freedom of expression" on something I sell, obviously whatever system of ownership and trademark we have now is FUBAR'd, and in desperate need of an overhaul, ne?

With regards to RPG products, it is simply a matter of acceptable losses. Pirating WILL happen. It is a fact of life. The people who do it are dedicated, idealistic, and infinately capable. No matter what you do, no matter how much you invest, your hard work will be available for free on some p2p program.

Studies have shown, as far as I've seen, rather consistantly that file-sharers don't hurt your sales, and may, in fact, help them. And if they don't, well, bite the bullet. It's a business descision. The world is not a perfect place filled with gumdrop faries and lollipop unicorn princesses. If people can get away with doing the wrong thing, they will. And the law will always be playing catch-up to people more skilled in doing the wrong thing than the law is in stopping it.

So screw 'em. It's like Nestle whining about how someone stole a candybar out of a convinience store. It's gonna happen. Deal with it, you crybaby!

And FYI, that isn't directed against any one person in particular, just the general atmosphere of "OH NOES! FREE DOWNLOADS!" Suck it up, do what you can to encourage fair trade, and go on with your life. You can't put the tiger back in the cage.

 

[Spell]

So maybe it's a really childish attitude, but I basically have a really strong feeling of "it's mine, not yours" so I get to tell you what can be done with it, and if you don't like it then you can go and create something similar yourself, because if I hadn't created it then it would never have existed.

if you're talking about novels, as far as i know, you do have the copyright of the work and you can do whatever you want with it. you can prevent people from print your book, you can prevent them to put adds into it, you can do as you like. (naturally, the price you have to pay is that you might find yourself without a publisher, but that's your business).

if you're talking about music, then you are wrong. if i write a piece of music i do have the copyright on it. all i have is a piece of paper with notes, lyrics, and chord changes.
then i go to [music label] and sign a deal to record the music. they own the recording in 99.9999999999% of the cases. it means that i have no power on:
1. who will use the recording
2. what use he/she will make of it

i have some power to decide the way the recording will be presented (CD art), but that is inversely proportional to my contractual bargain power, meaning that if i have a name in the industry, i can dictate the clauses in my contract with the label. if not, my bad, and i have to dig whatever condition the label want to put on the contract (of course, i still have the power not to sign the contract, but, obviously, i sign the contract BEFORE i go recording, so if the label wants to take advantage over me they can very easily).

ever wondered why you hear beatles covers in some commercial, but not the actual beatles recording? that happens because michael jackson bought the publishing rights of the beatles' songs, while paul mccartney managed to buy back the original recording. so paul mccartney has no power to stop michael jackson from selling phillips or whoever the right to use a beatles song for their commercial. after that all it takes is a cover band.

it is my knowledge that, at the beginning of the century, the publishing market for novel and other writings was run in the same way the music market is run now. all it too for an overnight switchover was ONE big publisher starting to offer contracts which left the copyright to the writers to get the best at their stables.

also notice that it is possible to run your own label and produce your own records. it takes 15,000 dollars to make a very good recording (i'm talking about studio time, mixing, mastering, paying a producer), not the millions metallica routinely spend every time they make an album.
of course you will have to be able to play the songs (sorry, no 93 takes for each chorus), but it's possible. in fact, as somebody pointed out, people at cdbaby are already doing it.
i'm considering joining them soon... if only they were more popular here in europe...

 

[Spell]

And if you couldn't make money off of them, there would be no more published thoughts, ideas or series of msuical notes arranged in a certain way.

this simply isn't true. you would have more labours of love, and a higher perchentage of non-professional (whatever that might mean), but, trust me, you wouldn't see a sudden disappearance of new music, literature, physics analysis, and so on.
i, for one, would go on composing even if i had another 30 day jobs and if nobody would ever listen to my music.
i turned into a job because i liked it too much, not because i wanted to become rich and famous overnight. (that doesn't mean that i don't want to become rich and famous! )

 

[Jonny Nexus]

Why? Because it's really not that simple.

"Either you own it or you don't"? Okay, what defines ownership? Even starting with that basic definition, you could come up with dozens of takes on not only ownership of physical property alone. Getting into the hoary subject of "intellectual property" makes the situation even worse. What makes something as intangible as an idea yours? Really, the only thing that enforces respect for something as intangible as an idea is a feeling of respect towards you for your contribution and a legal enforcement of the same. What exactly that entitles you to is far from ut and dried, either legally or ethically. If I think of something similar to you, why do you get precedence? But at the same time, don't you deserve some recompense for your work?

Indeed, if there is an incredible claim here, it is that the situation is dichotomous; I'd like to see your justification for why you think it is so.

Okay, fair enough. I accept that the situation is not dichotomous. I suppose a better way of putting it (though still perhaps too definite) might have been: "either you can own intellectual property or you can't".

As to your question of what if you have a similar idea to me, the answer is very simple: you own your expression of the idea and I own mine. Unless you copied my actual expression of the idea, in which case you're a plagerist.

And I don't believe that I deserve recompense for my work, but simply that I have the right to ask for payment from those who want it.

i.e. If I make chairs and tables I don't deserve recompense for the work of making them. But I have the right to say that you can't walk off with them without paying me first. Whether you choose to purchase them is entirely up to you.

 

[Voadam]

I don't know you, and I certainly am not prejudging your motivations for making this case. However, I have heard this argument before from others, and this is what we've found...

The problem with this semantic based debate is that it turns a serious debate into a shell game. The concept of 'theft' is one of the oldest in society, almost every major religion somewhere has a admonition against it -- you say theft and most people can clearly place the action in moral context.

However societal concensus has yet to form around what 'handle' to put on the profiteering or exploiting the intellectual properity of another person. While the consensus is in place that this action is wrong, there is no easy label, or niche in which this behaviour fits. So people use the closest anaglog they can find -- theft.

Arguing that it's not theft, is a deft move whereby people try to confuse semantics with legality/morality. By stripping away attempts at common nomenclature it is much easier to confuse people into thinking that the behaviour is not even commonly believed to be 'wrong', after all, if it was, we'd have a name for it.

So my annoyance at the incorrect use of the term theft is actually a deft move to confuse semantics with legality and morality. Thank you for pointing out my motives were obfuscation instead of an honest desire to see the actual merits of the issues discussed without terminology that obscures relevant points, I was not aware of that before. Allow me to continue with my now understood master plan now.

Copying and sharing protected IP is like theft in some ways but different in significant ways.

Therefore calling copying theft seems like a misleading semantic argument simply to get the moral and legal connotations of the term theft while obfuscating the moral and legal differences from theft.

I have no problem saying calling it theft annoys me because that seems an incorrect usage of the term that does not aid analysis of the issues.