RPG Illegal File Sharing Hurts the Hobby

[Banshee16]

I'm pondering the concept that pirating PDFs isn't stealing.

Let's assume you WERE going to buy the PDF. But you decided to steal it. The argument is, you're not taking anything AWAY from me. I have the same amount of money and inventory before and after the "theft". So is it theft?

Now if it wasn't a PDF, but a little knick-knack that I hand-carved, and you stole it off my cart, that'd be stealing.

If it were a book that I wrote and hand-bound myself, and you stole it off the shelf, now that'd be stealing. Let's presume my book making skills are crap, and the only thing of value in the book is the content itself. Because you physically stole one of my books, it's theft. But the only significant thing I actually lost is the content (because I do shoddy, cheap, and quick book binding).

How is this DIFFERENT than stealing a PDF of my book, which is essentially the same thing (the content)?

The point here is, in the old days, stuff was valuable because it was the physical thing itself that held value. A gun, and statue, etc. However, for a writer, the content is the thing that holds value, not the vehicle of transmission.

The basic premise of money is this, you give me money, and I'll give you a good or service. If you don't give me money you have to SUFFER the LACK of my good or service. I think this is where DannyAlcatraz says the pirate has stolen LOTS of $$$, because you didn't pay for it, you're supposed to be suffering. Since you aren't, you owe money.

All of this became complicated when ideas became valuable. Back in the old days, you simply paid somebody to move heavy things for you, or to build something for you. If you could do the task yourself, you could, if you wanted. As things got more complicated, you couldn't make things yourself, you needed specialists. Copy protection was built into the system (who here knows how to make a wagon (including the wheels)?). Now we've come to the point, where there's not really a physical thing, it's just the idea itself that is important.

The challenge is this. You could technically write your own Arcana Evolved. Or buy Monte's. Or steal a copy from Monte. However, like the wagon makers of old, if you don't BUY Monte's copy, then Monte won't be able to keep making more new things. And if Monte is a skilled craftsman of such works, then the only kind of product that will be in the market are the lower quality free ones, because creators of free products won't have the freetime and resources to dedicate to making a quality product.

Look at it this way, what if there were no copyright law or patent law? If you could get a copy of the content or concept, you are free to use it without paying the creator. Let's even assume that all creations are magically posted to www.freeideas.org (made up site name, don't bother...) for anybody to use.

Why should Monte put in any time writing?
Why should he put in time editting his work?
why should he put in time doing layout, instead of just putting his ideas on a forum as a post?

I write software for a living, so consider:
Why should I write any code?
Why should I invent anything?

The code I write is my value-add to my employer. It represents my unique solution to my employer's problems. I assert that my code is better than my competitors (other programmers or companies), as such, I should be granted more projects (and more money). If anybody could get my code, I or my employer would lose such advantage.

Furthermore, if my employer can just get FREE code, he has less use for me, and that decreases my value. This reciprocates, and pretty soon, you won't get much more free code except from hobbyists (who are NOT necessarily as good as I am).

This also applies to my ideas, many of which are patentable (I've got one in the queue right now at the USPTO). If others can take my ideas, then I can't get an advantage to get use it.

Ever wonder why guilds and unions exist? To protect their knowledge and lifestyle. To create a barrier to entry and elimination. To ensure the field survives. If you can take my work without paying me, then I can't sustain a living as a creator.

Ever wonder why all the jobs are leaving the US? Because we keep finding cheaper sources elsewhere. Piracy is simply the cheapest source around. The thing to remember, the people you are cutting out of the transaction are the ones who are hurt. This includes manufacturers, programmers, and RPG writers. Don't complain when all those people find a way to outsource or pirate your job and work, if you helped do it to them.

Janx

Ideas do have value. This is nothing new. It's just that computers have made stealing easier. This is no different than stealing artwork. On Ebay you can buy lots of counterfeit artwork. People have taken photos of an original print, and then re-printed it, and are selling it as fine art. But the artist, who created it, gets nothing. Say he's got 3000 prints of a given painting. Copying that painting doesn't take anything away from someone else. But he's spent the time doing it, and it's his way of life. It's how he puts bread on the table. Copying his painting and resellign it means one is making a profit off of it and not compensating the original artist. Who cares about the fact that it's digital? Anyone can make something digital nowadays. But that doesn't give them the right.

The use of digital media is analagous to the discovery of the atom. It has both positive and negative uses. I personally see no problem with digitizing a book if I've already got a copy of it.....but nobody should be just ripping off all their collection via PDF.

Most of the D20 companies are small shops with a few guys who are also gamers just trying to have some success with their hobby. Many are doing this in the hours after they do their regular 9-5 jobs. And people want to rip them off? We should be rewarding them for their efforts, not saying, "hey, cool book, let me go see if I can find a free copy online, even though I don't want to pay you for it".

Banshee

 

[gamecat]

Once someone puts out OGC they have actively endorsed the use by anyone else that complies with the OGL. It don't get much more black and white than having the author's approval.

True - but I guess I'm not throwing my dollars at someone who's repackaging someone else's work.

Free market

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

However, the "pirate wouldn't have bought it anyway" side has to be examined. Let's assume we ALL had chips in our head that prevented us from doing anything illegal. If that were the case, what normal person would BUY 1000 RPG titles? Assuming they had the money to do so, of course. The answer is that no normal person would (yes, there are exceptions). So in a perfect legal world, the sale of 1000 titles still wouldn't have happened. The person probably would have bought SOME of those titles, but not all 1000.

IP is not a negative good (a good that a producer will pay a consumer to take away)- it is a postive good ( a good a producer expects to be paid for to surrender control of it). Sewage? Now THAT is a negative good.

The pirate is taking time (to which we can conceptually and legally assign an hourly wage equivalent) to research and download the product of others, and subsequently using up resources (memory, while incredibly inexpensive, is not free) to store it. Thus, even though the value may be miniscule, it exists and is measurable. At the very least, a pirate owes in equity "value (time spent to find and acquire) * value (allocated storage space)" to the person or company from whom he has pirated material. If he actually USES any of it or passes it along to another person, there should be a use or handling charge.

That a product is never used by the pirate is immaterial- if I buy a $0.50 ear of corn and let it rot on my kitchen counter, I've still acquired and wasted a consumer good. If I steal the ear of corn and do the same, I owe that farmer (and his shipper, etc) that same amount.

If I buy an option on a movie script and never use it, I cost the writer what is called an opportunity cost There, its the cost of him being able to shop it to someone else who might actually be interested in producing the script.

And that's really where I'm going with this. In both sides of the argument, I see a lot of "all or nothing" mentality going around. People hoard pirated stuff because it's free. It's a weird compulsion. The pirate would never have BOUGHT all that stuff. On the other hand, there is probably some reasonable subset of the collection that they would have bought. If there were a way to guesstimate that amount, that amount is the TRUE value of lost sales due to piracy (for that one individual).

Its only "free" because they have opted not to pay the creators for it.

Perception is a powerful motivator. In reality, fresh water is one of the most valuable substances on earth, yet we waste it in all kinds of ways because we don't factor all of the appropriate costs into acquiring & using it. If we did, it would cost more than oil on an equivalent volume basis.

Because pirated IP is percieved as free, and the acquisition of pirated IP is percieved by so many as an ethics-neutral or ethics-positive viewpoint, pro-piracy advocates don't percieve the actual costs of what they do.

 

[BryonD]

True - but I guess I'm not throwing my dollars at someone who's repackaging someone else's work.

Free market

Well that is cool of course.

But that is completely outside the issue of ethics.

I own quite a few products with re-used content. In many cases the product is cleaned up or improved upon and I think that is great. Heck, I own Spycraft 1. I own Grim Tales, which re-worked to the chase rules from Spycraft. I own Hot Pursuit that expanded on the chase rules from Grim Tales. All three were excellent purchases in my assessment.

If, on the other hand, these products had re-invented the wheel just to avoid repackaging someone else's work, then they would have been notably inferior to what they are.

Borrowing other people's tools and giving them back sharper is what the OGL is all about.

If you are limiting yourself to first runs only, you are sometimes missing the better versions. But that is your call, of course.

 

[interwyrm]

I'd like to say that I think copyright is a good idea. Mostly, I say that because it prevents another person from plagarizing a person's work and selling it as their own. That's when you've actually 'lost' sales.

 

[BryonD]

That a product is never used by the pirate is immaterial- if I buy a $0.50 ear of corn and let it rot on my kitchen counter, I've still acquired and wasted a consumer good. If I steal the ear of corn and do the same, I owe that farmer (and his shipper, etc) that same amount.

round and round....

You do understand the complete dead end flaw in this analogy, right?

Anyone on the opposite side of this debate (and there are plenty of wrong-headed people on both sides) just finds disfunctional theft analogies to be proof that your side doesn't get it and therefore evidence that their position is correct.

If I buy an option on a movie script and never use it, I cost the writer what is called an opportunity cost There, its the cost of him being able to shop it to someone else who might actually be interested in producing the script.

Not sure how that really matters, but you resolved your own issue here when you used the word "buy" at the start of the example.

Perception is a powerful motivator. In reality, fresh water is one of the most valuable substances on earth, yet we waste it in all kinds of ways because we don't factor all of the appropriate costs into acquiring & using it. If we did, it would cost more than oil on an equivalent volume basis.

um, You're saying that wasting water makes it less expensive?

 

[Digital M@]

I can see why pirating gets to writers and deisgners but the question still remains, how much does it impact business?

All of the large WotC books are available on the web and I am willing to bet that they are downloaded a lot. But, on the opposite side of the coin, who is going to read through 150+ pages of online material? It is just as expensive to print it as it is to buy it, or close enough that only a fool would do it more than once. The person now has 1 of 3 things: 1. A mostly worthless file sitting on his computer 2. a copy of something they used to determine the purchasability of a product or 3. A digital backup of what they already own. This impacts a WotC as much as stealing a pack of underwear from Hanes. Note, it is just as wrong as any form of theft.

The smaller publisher and .pdf publisher are more financially impacted by this theft.

It is theft no matter how you look at it or try to justify it. If you steal from someplace or someone and they never know you took something, it is still selfish theft.

 

[Crothian]

It is just as expensive to print it as it is to buy it, or close enough that only a fool would do it more than once.

That's not really true. Lots of people have the ability to print things at work or school at basically no cost to them. Or they have a friend that can. I know when I was in college I'd print of multiple copies of thousnad page netbooks for gaming without a second thought.

 

[Vigilance]

I am sad. I think Chuck missed my joke.

I'll chime back in and say that The Sigil reflected on an aspect of my own feelings on the subject. I'm an absolute anti-DRM nutcase, but I don't think that copyright is useless or that all content shlould be free on the internet. I think things seriously need to be refigured, though, and that the answer of lost sales to piracy is NOT to treat every customer as a criminal and legislate governmentally what they can do with content after they've purchased it.

As far as the OGL ... I love it. I think it's one of the best ideas in d20, but one of the least-utilized ones. When I'm writing rules, I honestly try to track down AS MUCH OGL material as possible first ... so I can expand upon and evolve it. Maybe it's my academic background, but I think quoting the good work of others is better than each author totally re-inventing the wheel.

--fje

I got it no worries

Not only did I grok that you were poking fun, but I even grokked WHO you were poking fun AT.

And I'm with you (and Sigil) on being anti-DRM but pro-copyright. Thus my analogy about random bag searches as you leave stores. That *would* nap the occasional shoplifter but its just not worth it in lost paying customers.

Still doesn's make pirating RIGHT. And I'm consistently amazed that some people will argue that it is, or that it somehow "benefits" industry.

Shoplifting Tylenol doesn't increase the exposure of Tylenol ("I shared my Tylenol with 5 friends and they liked it so much they all went out and BOUGHT some!"), and the fact that the shoplifter chose to steal Tylenol rather than Bayer aspirin isn't a sign of brand strength Tylenol should be happy about.

Chuck

 

[Corsair]

Yarrr.

I'm a pirate.



I admit it. I have pdfs for games I'll never play. I have multiple DVDs worth of dnd pdfs.

And you know what, I still have nearly every 3.0 book in deadtree style, and deadtree versions of 75% of my pdfs. I'd say a solid half of those books I never would have bought if not for the pdfs. I only have one book store of any size near me, and no true hobby stores in easy distance. Pdfs are my only way to browse before shopping. I download a pdf, flip through it, and decide whether or not I want to buy a book.

Most recent example: I got a pdf of the 1e MnM a few days ago. Since then, I've decided to order both the 2e MnM core rules and GM book once the GM book is released. I likely would not have decided to do that without seeing the pdf first.

Are there others who are worse than me? Sure. On guy I play with is a pdf pack rat. He has more files that he'll never use that you could shake a stick at. (But then again he also has nearly 600 DVD movies that he's never watched that he copied just to say that he had them) Do you really think he would have ever bought any of those movies or books? Probably not.

Now am I arguing piracy is right? No of course not. I still buy the books I use. But having a pdf of a book I never use isn't hurting a publisher, its saving me from wasting money on a book I might otherwise have purchased and regretted. (Like say, my Mage: The Ascension handbook)