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Pros and cons of PDFs
- Thread starter Cecil
- Start date
jmucchiello
Hero
This is so wrong. Avant garde bands don't get signed to recording contracts with the big 5 because they don't make multimillion selling albums. Record companies want hits and nothing else. 10-15 years ago they discovered they could push the flavor of the month hard and sell one multiplatnum album and then move on to the next artist. When the old flavor goes back into the recording studio to make the followup album, the "Great" producers and studio musician are no longer at their disposal. The marketting department doesn't push their 2nd album. If by some miracle their 2nd album does well, their 3rd album gets even less help from the company. You see, most record deals are 3 albums. If you push an artist hard for 3 albums when it comes time to renegotiate their contract they want the moon. If you don't promote the 2nd and 3rd album, you can drop the artist or stay with the contract that favors the record company for a 4th and possible 5th album. Meanwhile you're still pushing the flavor of the month and getting those multiplatnum albums in your studio.Mistwell said:
Ever noticed that pop bands of old would have hits for 4-5 years before disappearing, but nowadays bands have 1 year of hits before they are history? This is why record sales are slumping, why avant garde bands have no shot at a decent recording career. It has nothing to do with Napster. In fact, while Napster was online, record companies had some of their all-time highest quarterly sales. They got rid of Napster and now sales are down. Coincidence? I doubt it.
And now, to swing back on topic, obviously I like PDFs. Personally, I have a CD-RW that I update with PDFs as I buy/download them. When the CD-RW fills, I cut it to a CD-R and start a new CD-RW. That gives me two backups of the files. (And the files float on my hard drive too.)
But then, being a long time computer user/programmer, I know all about catastrophic hard disk failure (been there, seen that) and try to be vigilant with my data. "Try to" being a very telling choose of phrase.
Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
Cergorach said:
So, let me see if I get this straight. Local game stores are dinosaurs. The whole push to sell these products in book stores is useless. The industry has changed, and unless you buy your products on line, you are behind the times. Does that about sum up your arguement?
Does everyone else agree with this sentiment? Personally, I think it is worth its own thread. So...I'm moving it here:
http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=59947
Last edited:
Cergorach
The Laughing One
That's <i>not</i> what i'm saying, i'm saying that times are changing and people have to adept or die out (in keeping it with the dinosaur anology). The FLGS is <i>not</i> useless, but the focus <i>is</i> changing from the brick store to the web store. Just as more books are being released in an electronic format.
So many copyright laws have changed around here in the last year that i don't even know if that is correct...
Drawmack
First Post
Cergorach said:
This is one of the new laws. The reason they made it a law is because if it's legal to download files if you own the data in another format legally then it becomes impossible to enforce that law.
If it is legal to download variant formats of legally owned data the enforcement flow goes like this:
1) scan the net and find out who is downloading the file
2) contact their ISP and find out who the person behind the connection is
3) contact their local authorities and get them involved
4) the local authorities issue a search warant
5) the local authorities search the person's house for proof of the person owning a legal copy of the material.
6) if no proof is found you may begin to prosecute.
Do you have any idea how much money that costs? They just are not going to do it for a 20 dollar book or CD.
On the other hand if it is illegal to download it the enforcement flow goes like this:
1) set up a server that holds the files and is accessible through the file sharing programs
2) when someone downloads grab their IP
3) contact their ISP and find the person behind the connection
4) issue the arrest warrant
The cost has just dropped significantly and even companies as small as d20 pdf publishers could afford to set this up if 10 - 15 of them went it together. They would only need the hardware and one techy to do the leg work of finding the person and contacting the authoritires.
Cergorach
The Laughing One
@Drawmack
Euh, i think i didn't express myself very welll...
Around here (The Netherlands) that already was how it worked, you can only make backup copies of what you own yourself, you can't get the backups through third parties. There have been some shake ups with the copyright laws recently, and i haven't followed them closely enough to say that around here even that is allowed.
According to our laws your supposed to give an (unspecified) amount to the owner of the copyrighted material, this was never enforced and the amount owned was never clarified, until recently that is. Every company was billed for the use of their copying machines to copy copyrighted material (excerpts from books, magazines, etc.), the owned amount was based on an undisclosed formula. Some companis got a rather LARGE bill. Companies are now fighting this new 'law' with a vengeance because the formula is extremely inaccurate and accounting for each copy made on a copy machine is just to expensive...
Euh, i think i didn't express myself very welll...
Around here (The Netherlands) that already was how it worked, you can only make backup copies of what you own yourself, you can't get the backups through third parties. There have been some shake ups with the copyright laws recently, and i haven't followed them closely enough to say that around here even that is allowed.
According to our laws your supposed to give an (unspecified) amount to the owner of the copyrighted material, this was never enforced and the amount owned was never clarified, until recently that is. Every company was billed for the use of their copying machines to copy copyrighted material (excerpts from books, magazines, etc.), the owned amount was based on an undisclosed formula. Some companis got a rather LARGE bill. Companies are now fighting this new 'law' with a vengeance because the formula is extremely inaccurate and accounting for each copy made on a copy machine is just to expensive...
Ezrael
First Post
Pro - if you have a good idea for a supplement, adventure, campaign setting et al, you can afford to make a .pdf and distribute it for much, much less than the cost of printing a book. A good entry-level way to get your material out there, and one I'm surprised more people don't take advantage of.
Most of my cons have already been listed.
Most of my cons have already been listed.
Pro:
a) You can search the document much easier than a book. Want to know where that "fatigue" rule is detailed? type the word and look where it appears. I use the SRD at my table, and it massively speeds up game play whenever I need a rule looked up.
b) Much easier to transport if you have a laptop. You can carry your whole library of pdfs to the gaming place, and have easy access at the gaming table.
a) You can search the document much easier than a book. Want to know where that "fatigue" rule is detailed? type the word and look where it appears. I use the SRD at my table, and it massively speeds up game play whenever I need a rule looked up.
b) Much easier to transport if you have a laptop. You can carry your whole library of pdfs to the gaming place, and have easy access at the gaming table.
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