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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SteveC" data-source="post: 3984479" data-attributes="member: 9053">One might say that it already has. The music industry in this country is fundamentally changing. The reason for all the lawsuits we see from RIAA is that they (record companies) realize they don't have a reason to be there anymore. PDFs and electronic content are a few years behind the curve, but they're going in the same direction: you can get a PDF of nearly every gaming product for free on the Internet. I don't condone what you have to do in order to get them (in fact, I've spent hundreds of dollars on PDFs) but the fact is you can. When 4th edition comes out, you'll be able to get each book in the same manner, for free.WotC has to consider how to deal with these issues, and the DI is what they've come up with. Giving you cheap and easy access to electronic versions of their rules, and adding access to updates and errata to that gives a lot of people a reason to pay for them. I'm sure the DI will have a rocky start, but if WotC provides a quality product that's worth something to their market, it will succeed.I would make the argument that the existence of the SRD was their attempt to deal with the piracy issue in 3x. Why do you need to steal a copy of the 3x Players Handbook when the SRD is there for free? And make no mistake, WotC sold a lot of PHBs! I checked Amazon, and the 3.5 PHB is ranked approximately 8500 for all book sales right now, and is #1 for D&D books and #11 for RPG books, again that's right now! Not bad for something you can get "for free," and will be obsolete in six months.I'd argue that a lot of the popularity of D&D came from the OGL and the fact that the books were freely available in a limited format. WotC would be well advised to continue this in 4E in my opinion.--Steve</blockquote>

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