RPG Illegal File Sharing Hurts the Hobby

[Sledge]

the question isn't about losses with PDFs as there is no inventory lost. The question is how much will fighting piracy gain you in sales?

A little story way back in the original napster days I had just gotten the CD to S&M by Metallica. Great couple of discs. But I wanted it in mp3 format and didn't have any software to do so. So I went looking on napster. I never shared their songs, and could have legally converted the disc to mp3 had I known how. Downloading was easier. Metallica however was one of the first bands to fight napster, while others actively thought it was a good idea. So I didn't get my mp3's then, and had to learn how to rip them. I ripped them, and enjoy the music, but I've never bought a Metallica CD since. The bad taste in my mouth of getting a threatening message from Metallica has kept me from them. After napster got shut down I stopped buying new cds. We have around 200 music cds here. Of which maybe 5 are from the last 5 years. The rest are from another 5 year period. 195 cds before riaa fights sharing. 5 after fighting starts. Now I listen to digital radio and the songs I already have.

Businesses need to look at things from a goal oriented perspective, just a perspective of what they deserve. The deserve perspective is why Sony did the rootkit. The goal perspective is responsible for places you can buy mp3s online. Fighting with potential customers does not inspire them to buy from you.

Getting back to the PDF situation. I really like pdfs. I like buying them. I have some comp pdfs that I wanted to pay for because I like them so much. Instead I just have to buy other pdfs buy the same publisher. I don't share any of my commercial pdfs. If someone came to my game with a printed out copy of a book, I would ask them where they got it from. It's never happened though. I don't see piracy as a bad thing happening to pdf publishers, so much as people that need to be sold better. Customers waiting to happen.

For a pdf producer one of the things they need to do are make sure they have information on the pdf that shows it is for pay. This can be done in a nice enough way that when I open the pdf I get a "Thanks for purchasing" like in Bastion Press pdfs. This takes any accidental downloads and makes me feel good for making sure more books come out. The people that do share then are also propogating the message of how the payments for these books are for real people, thus motivating more sales.
Second I would strongly suggest that every pdf publisher install a copy of one of the safe P2P programs. Set it up to share all of your demos. Get them out there for people to see. If someone is planning to download say "Complete Minions" from bastion they should get a list of the demo files first. They open the demo files and should get a nice little message saying: please share this demo with your friends to help spread the word on Complete Minions. Then maybe they will download the full file, or just maybe they will click a link in your pdf to ENGS or RPGNow or other stores. That link there makes it easy. The one thing you don't want is to establish animosity with those people that could become customers.
The third thing I'm going to suggest is mostly irrelevant, but don't offer a pdf for cover or close to cover price. That defeats the whole point of it being on pdf.

 

[Numion]

Music and RPG piracy are different. With music you get a superior product from the filesharing service than from the shop (ease of use, you get it before the stores, no computer-messing copyprotections). With RPGs you get an inferior product from filesharing services.

So I still buy the RPG books I use. I've even bought a couple because of what I saw on the sharing systems, that I wouldnt've bought otherwise.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

It's something I'm thinking very hard about, because the guy that perfects it is going to make himself unbelievably wealthy.

In the case of musicians, I think we'll see a return of the patron system - with corporations like PepsiCo filling the role of, say, the Chancellor of Elizabeth's court.

Think of how many recording artists make a huge amount from endorsements already. Eventually it may get to the point where they subsist on endorsements and concert revenue, and the music is made available for free as advertising material.

I'm not sure this will ever be practical for the RPG industry.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Ahhh. It's been almost two months! Welcome back, thread.

 

[Pseudonym]

Ahhh. It's been almost two months! Welcome back, thread.

I thought more like two weeks.

I suppose we could combine the recurring topics and ask if 4th Edition will encourage or discourage piracy, and will my paladin suffer as a result? Come to think of it, we should make it a poll.

 

[Hodgie]

The RPG industry is in a unique situation to piracy in my opinion. Someone who wants to steal music will steal it alone, listen to it alone, and then port it onto an iPod which makes it indistinguishable from legitimately acquired music. The same is true of DVDs, people can't really tell it is pirated while it is in use.

Were people to be pirating PDFs and then not using them I wouldn't be too concerned. If they are only collecting them (for whatever reason) they weren't going to buy them, they didn't really get anything for free, and no one lost out.

But people are using pirated PDFs, and this means that their friends are seeing them do this. I, evidently like many others, require than any material used at the table be owned by someone at the table simply out of courtesy to the industry. The RPG players are the best defense against RPG piracy.

Friends don't let friends used pirated PDFs.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Personally, I would prefer if all the books I bought would also be made available to me on pdf. I find electronic formats (for a wide variety of things) to be far more useful and convenient than carrying around hard copies all the time.

And if some DM/player tried to play Copyright-Police with me, that's someone I wouldn't want to game with in the first place. Lead by example and speak for yourself. And let others do the same...

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

And if some DM/player tried to play Copyright-Police with me, that's someone I wouldn't want to game with in the first place.

You'd wouldn't want to game with someone who'd object to illegal .pdfs? How about someone who objected to gaming with stolen RPG books?

 

[Crothian]

And if some DM/player tried to play Copyright-Police with me, that's someone I wouldn't want to game with in the first place. Lead by example and speak for yourself. And let others do the same...

That's funny. They are leading by example and having others do the same. So, they act exaxcting as you request of them and its still not good enough, typical

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

That's funny. They are leading by example and having others do the same. So, they act exaxcting as you request of them and its still not good enough, typical

They're not leading by example and speaking for themselves. They're demanding that you do what they say. The poster that Ogork is referring to demands that if anyone uses material from a sourcebook that they personally own a physical copy of the sourcebook. Which means that if you legitimately own a .pdf copy you can't use it. Or if your buddy owns a copy you can't use it to make your character, even if he's playing at the same table. That's what he means by someone playing copyright-police. Just a self-righteous jerk trying to make himself look better by arbitrarily laying down the law on people who don't happen to want to buy the books in hard copy, or who think it's all right to share. Hell, even Mr. Rogers thinks it's all right to share.