RPG Piracy

[Numion]

All the people I know approve music piracy. I haven't bought a cd in two years.

Should RPG piracy be somehow different? I don't do it, but do people people think it should be different?

(about music piracy: I couldn't buy cd's even if I wanted though; current CDs don't work in PCs, and I have no other way to play them )

 

[Mouseferatu]

Should RPG piracy be somehow different? I don't do it, but do people people think it should be different?

Should it be? No. In either case, it's stealing someone else's work and not paying them for it.

But whether or not it should be different, it seems to be viewed that way.

The way I see it, it has to do with the rise of the Internet over the past years. It has been both possible and quite easy to copy music for ages. CD burners are cheap, and of course before that, we all made do with double tape decks. For good or ill, we've been copying music for so long that it's just become part of the way things are done. We don't think about it.

Until the rise in prevelence of the net, though, there was no easy way to pirate a book. Sure, you could stand over a copy machine for an hour, but that was effort-intensive, expensive, might damage the original, and produced copies that were both blatantly obvious and unattractive.

Now? Now you can download a PDF on your highspeed in a matter of seconds and be done with it. It's common as all heck, but it's still new enough that it feels worse than copying music.

(It also feels worse to me personally because, as a writer, RPG piracy hurts me directly, but that's just personal bias. )

So no, they shouldn't be treated differently, but the fact is we've had a lot longer to get used to the one than the other.

 

[Suldulin]

I will admit I once in a while use Kazaa for some RPG books, especially when the local bookstore doesn't have it aviable to look through before buying. However I usually try to make sure that if I actually put something to use that I shell out the money as soon as I have it.

 

[Allanon]

I've done it once... because I well didn't have the money to buy the real book. For Sinterklaas (dutch festivity similar to Christmas) last year my mom (god bless that woman) gave me The Banewarrens from Malhavoc Press.
Unfortunately I didn't have either of the Books of Eldritch Might . And well... after reading the adventure I really wanted to play it like it was presented in the Book. Because the book itself doesn't have any handy dandy conversions for the alternative character classes presented I downloaded them from internet . (Today I own the books and have deleted the downloads btw)

I don't think I'll need to download books ever again, but I do understand the reason people would do it. D&D and the likes are expensive hobby's and sometimes you just don't have the money. I normally wait until I do have the money but a lot of people don't or won't.

Still I myself don't like illegal RPG books on the net because I firmly believe that the people creating these things should be suported. And maybe I'm just weird but, the feel of the real books and the added bonus of being able to read them in bed and while on the toilet makes it worth the money to buy them.

(Edit: darn typo's SHOO SHOO )

 

[RangerWickett]

To the original poster of the thread: I don't suppose you could email me the address of the site you mentioned, so I can send a friendly cease and desist letter, could you?

 

[Numion]

To the original poster of the thread: I don't suppose you could email me the address of the site you mentioned, so I can send a friendly cease and desist letter, could you?

Yeah, me too!

(I know, I know...)

 

[DDK]

Restatement of the original question.

Hrm, I think some people have misinterpreted the question. Like I said, I'm not asking for pro or con arguments. I'm asking why hasn't it been stopped. If I, Mr. Average Joe Schmoe, can find these places, then why can't people with far greater resources than I, find them and stop them.

The rephrased question that Black Omega stated probably should've been how I phrased it originally, ie. Why isn't piracy stopped easily?

 

[Bagpuss]

Well for a start most company's don't have the resources to pay someone just to search the net all day to locate pirate copies.

Then its also a case of costs vs return. You pay someone to track down and stamp of piracy, which could get expensive (what with the prices lawyers charge to send a letter), just to stop one site.

But that doesn't mean people that downloaded your 'book' are now going to buy it in the shops, they will just do without, or find it on another site. So you have an additional expense but no extra income.

 

[DDK]

To the original poster of the thread: I don't suppose you could email me the address of the site you mentioned, so I can send a friendly cease and desist letter, could you?

Heh, to do that I'd have to actively go searching for it again. I hope you don't think I'm the type of person to bookmark a place like that! I am, after all, a wannabe writer. Stealing books would kindof be like, well, poohing in my own bath, yah know?

Now of course, if I go actively searching for it, then I'm going to want your assurance that I'm legally immune to prosecution. After all, what would happen if I was surfing and the storm troopers came in and busted me? Am I going to say, "Hey, I was doing it for Natural 20!" I mean... would YOU believe me?

Of course, you could always go find them yourself... the site was called something like, 'b00k w@rz'r'u$'. Of course, that'll probably net you a billion responses. Originally I was searching for Greyhawk 2nd edition, 2nd hand stuff and did specific searches for the product I wanted in a search engine, ie. "The Adventure Begins" and "Keep on the Borderlands". That's probably the quickest way to find these places since the files, or 'filez', are what they're all about.

Hmm... I just realized that I should probably clear my cache... incriminating evidence and all...

 

[Numion]

Re: Restatement of the original question.

Hrm, I think some people have misinterpreted the question. Like I said, I'm not asking for pro or con arguments. I'm asking why hasn't it been stopped. If I, Mr. Average Joe Schmoe, can find these places, then why can't people with far greater resources than I, find them and stop them.

Why hasn't music industry stopped piracy of music? Find an answer to that, and then you'll have an answer to your question too. And I presume that the music industry has a bit more resources at their use than the RPG people

Can you even stop something like kazaa? Kazaa has a ton of RPG stuff. I constantly share 80 gigs of movies, 150 music videos and 1500 mp3s (I know, I know, 1337 warez dudez ), so I think I would've gotten a notice if they knew how to send it to me..