RPG Illegal File Sharing Hurts the Hobby

[Lonely Tylenol]

For now at least. Fair Use is under constant attack by the various media industries that want perpetual control over ever aspect of how we use thier products. When you have to accept a EULA on a freakin' CD that's a sign that things are getting out of control IMO.

That's a sign you need to start getting into independent music. Speaking of which, allow me to shamelessly patriotically plug the upcoming CBC Radio 3 channel that will be debuting in around a month on Sirius satellite radio. It is going to be 24 hours a day of independent Canadian music. Currently, Radio 3 has a weekly podcast of the same, and many of those artists can be downloaded for free at newmusiccanada.com. You can find out more here.

Independent music is good. It's also frequently inexpensive or free. Enjoy it.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

You don't have to tell me. I'm into metal, so I don't really buy much of anything from the major labels other than Pearl Jam cds when they come out. Of course since PJ is on Sony and Sony has revealed thier true nature I'll most likely download thier next album as I don't trust Sony not to try and screw up my PC. Of course if Sony and the "Big Boys" start getting away with screwing over listeners, the small metal labels I frequent like Nuclear Blast & Century Media will get in on the action. I love albums, the art and the lyrics and just having the disc on my CD shelf. I don't like downloads unless I can't find the album due to it being out of print, or I'm sampling some songs to see if the album is good. However the day I have to accept an EULA on a Morbid Angel CD so I can rip a mix disc is the day I download everything. Wrong? I honestly won't care about their "IP" when things hit that stage and I'm pretty hardcore about supporting bands I love.

 

[Morrus]

Excuse me? So now owning a product is evidence that you have stolen it? Or was this meant to be a joke? If it's a joke, it's in poor taste. If it's not, I don't suppose I'll be buying anything from Ronin Arts anytime soon, since I'm obviously a thief, as evidenced by my bookshelf of RPG materials.

I think it's pretty clear he was joking. To me, anyway.

I have heard better jokes, though!

 

[Psionicist]

I think it's pretty clear he was joking. To me, anyway.

I have heard better jokes, though!

<OT>

This is a pretty interesting subject in itself: social software. Basically, how will a community evolve around the means of communication a certain "socialization software" such as a forum gives the users? In this case, if you give the users means of showing they are joking (smileys), then sooner or later lots of people will begin to use this feature for this or other purposes. If a user decide to not use the feature for the purpose intended (like not using smileys at all), weird things usually happen (such as it's hard to know if someone is joking or not). One of the weirdest is probably the way people use to quote box to break an argument down to very small pieces, responding to all the different pieces independantly.

There's a cool essay about this here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/NotJustUsability.html

Sorry for the OT.

</OT>

 

[philreed]

Sorry for the OT.

It may have been OT but at least it was interesting OT. And, so we all understand me:

 

[seankreynolds]

Why did I? I'm freakin' broke. When 3.0 came out, I got the PHB, DMG, MM. Then, I went and got the Forgotten Realms CS, Sword and Fist, Tome and Blood, ect. I've also bought Oriental Adventures, Ravenloft, and a few others I can't remember.
So, BAM! 3.5 comes out, and I think it's a better system. I buy the PHB (x2 cuz we needed more), DMG, MM (1, 2, and 3), Dragonlance setting, Eberron Setting, Complete Adventurer, Ghostwalk (which I didn't like), and a few others that I forgot.
Also note that I have 3 kids, so buying books was like.. counting pennies to make sure I had the correct change when I bought one.

For a guy with three kids you sure have a lot of time for gaming, given all the different campaign settings you've bought.

So, shun as you wish. When WotC bought TSR, I remember reading something about keeping costs for books down. The AD&D 2nd ed. PHB was $19.95

In 1995. And mostly black & white. The 3.5 book is available in 2004 and is full color.

and the 3.5 PHB was $29.95.

After two years of selling the 3.0 book for $20.

Most of the other 3.x books have been more costly than stuff was in 2nd ed.

Welcome to the "ten years later" machine. Look at anything available ten years ago, it's almost certainly more expensive today (with the exception of electronics and things that devalue, like most cars).

 

[philreed]

Welcome to the "ten years later" machine. Look at anything available ten years ago, it's almost certainly more expensive today (with the exception of electronics and things that devalue, like most cars).

These days I like to use comic books for price comparisons when the "blah blah blah cost $X in 19__ ."

It can be fun to ask someone, after they tell you an AD&D PHB cost $12 in 1979, "How many comic books could you have bought in 1979 for the price of a PHB? How many comic books can you buy today for the price of a PHB?"

 

[BSF]

Obviously that wasn't as funny as I thought it was. Of course, this is hardly the first time I've thought something was funny when others didn't. Or it's possible that you have to be personally affected by illegal downloads, and then contacted by those that have the illegal PDFs, for it to be really funny.

I think there has to be a certain amount of experienced cynicism to understand why that is funny to you. Kind of like the kids at the store I once worked out. They would walk up to the counter with a CD, demanding a refund. Of course, the CD is still in the Anti-theft jacket (which is always taken off before an item leaves the store), inventory shows x amount in stock, the shelf area has x-1 CD, the 'customer' doesn't have a receipt, and the sales system shows 0 sales for the fictitious day the 'customer' bought the CD. Namely because it hadn't ever been received into the store until after that date.

I know you have dealt with vaguely similar situations Phil. I see where it is a funny joke. But it is funny in the same way that I, as a System/Network Admin find the movie Officespace to be funny. I laugh because I sometimes live it...

 

[Slife]

Uh huh. And what, pray tell, is this? How much does it cost? I bet it's quite a bit more than buying the book at the local B&N or off Amazon. Then there's quality. And binding...unless, of course, you think books magically bind themselves. Color me skeptical at your claims, sirrah.

Here are two relevant articles in Wired magizine.

http://wired-vig.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,13003,00.html

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,45228,00.html

Here are a couple companies that sell the machines

http://www.instabook-corporation.com/

http://www.bookmachine.com/

Yes, they do do binding. No, no magic is used.

Not sure about pricing of the books that are made, haven't really seen them in use.

 

[PetriWessman]

Equating digital rights management with child labour is . . . hyperbole.

Oh please.

I was using "child labor" as one category of things that might make buying something unethical to someone, and talking in the general sense. This should have been obvious for anyone who actually read what I wrote, instead of grabbing a couple of keywords and playing indignant.

In case is wasn't obvious, I'll clarify: Both "child labor" and "DRM" (and lots of other things) are things that might make someone not buy a product because of ethical reasons, because they see the company using means and methods that they don't want to support. That has nothing to do with the relative "badness" of those two things. Obviously, using child labor is worse than plopping in some intrusive DRM -- but if the DRM is alread "bad enough" to stop you from buying, the difference in "evil" does not matter. It's already in the "sorry, no sale" category.