RPG Piracy

[DDK]

Note to Moderators: This is not intended to spark a pro/con debate and I would ask that you give the thread a chance. This is not a troll. I'm quite seriously curious about the answer to the below question.

Note to Posters: Please don't turn this into a pro/con piracy debate. I'm just seeking answers to the below question.

Ok, I have a legitimate question I'd like to address to the computer-savvy netizens of this board.

Why is piracy not stopped?

The reason I ask is that, in conducting a search for second hand material, I came across a 'warez' site. Curious, I investigated further and within five minutes I had access to... well... everything.

All of Natural 20's products were on the lists. All of Ambient Inc.'s products. All of WotC's products. All of TSR's products. Hell, they even had Martha Stewart cookbooks (or, how to 'cook' the books... haha)!

Now I have no proficiency in 'hacking'. I'm just a regular schmoe with a 56k connection and an old computer. I didn't know any special passwords or methods of finding 'hidden' links or anything of the sort. I know zippidy about servers and linux and unix, etc. I just, quite literally, stumbled across it.

I've heard the arguments as to why piracy is hard to stamp out, however I'm wondering if that's really the truth. I mean, logically a company doesn't want it to happen so obviously there is no reason to lie, but maybe a lie has been perpetrated and perpetuated by others.

Even with my limited knowledge, I know that it's possible to track someone down through their internet connection. So if I can both find the warez and find the person... then why can't someone, with the resources of a company and with government agency backing, do so?

WotC could hire one person to sit on a computer all day doing nothing but hunting for warez and tracking the perpetrators. I don't see why this is not a viable solution. Which is why I'm asking. Why is piracy not stopped?

EDIT: Edited the question, "Why is there piracy?" to "Why is piracy not stopped?" for clarification purposes.

 

[megamania]

Because we are fat, lazy and have the attitude that "sell for a higher cost to make up for the piratecy". Which we do. We ALL do. It's not right but happens.

 

[garyh]

In my young and naive days (two years ago ), I dl'ed a Star Trek episode off bearshare and left it in my shared folder. Within three days, someone from the Motion Picture Association of America found it, contacted my ISP, they warned me, and I uninstalled the share program and deleted the file in question.

So, what I'm saying I guess, is that other companies do what you suggest, and it works.

 

[Nightfall]

Like mm said, people like free stuff and feel like "Hey we are entitled since we shell out money for other stuff." This just happens to be a growing resentment and also because the Internet has a hard time policing itself or having people police it. It's almost like the Wild West. To keep a claim, you have to defend it.

 

[Talaysen]

I'm going to play devil's advocate for a second - well, sort of. For my part, I only download electronic copies of RPG manuals when:
- I own a meatspace copy of the book in question
- I'm on the point of buying the book in question, and it just hasn't arrived locally yet (as was the case with Deities and Demigods, the Epic Level Handbook, etc.)
- The book is out of print and utterly unavailable

There are still legal considerations, and there is the fact that - in some cases - the authors might sell the work to someone else and thus wouldn't want electronic copies around, but those ethical guidelines work for me.

That said, I can understand the pirates' viewpoint, to an extent. A number of publishers have been increasing their prices - I remember a time when I could buy a book the size of, say, d20 Modern for $25 or less. My dollar doesn't stretch as far as it once did. Now, the economy probably has something to do with that. The decisions of higher-ups have something to do with it and various licensing fees and overhead costs have something to do with it. But it's still frustrating to expect to pay forty bucks or more for a book that once would have been significantly less expensive.

And sometimes, really, people just want sections of a book, or will only refer to it on rare occasions. Sure, they could borrow it from a friend - maybe - but why bother? Why pay for a book you'll use on occasion, at unpredictable intervals, but honestly not very often?

Then there are weight and shelf space issues - a lot of gamers rely on laptops these days, and if you're just going to keep a copy of the book on your laptop to refer to while gaming, why bother buying the real version?

I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying I understand the reasoning - and the temptation.

That said, I find the practice of posting PDFs that are on sale elsewhere utterly reprehensible. These books are already in electronic form and are with very few exceptions quite reasonably priced. THAT practice I don't understand at all.

 

[Eternalknight]

I think a lot of people don't see it as stealing, which it is. There is also a problem of differing countrieslaws. For instance, I have had friends in Canada who have been caught with pirated material they downloaded of Kazaa. I have many more friends in Australia, yet none of them have ever been caught like this.

 

[jgbrowning]

"Why is there piracy?"

Because free is better. And im not being a jerk. The only reason why people think free is not better is because they think they have a social obligation to the person/company who created the product or the economic system the product was create in, or the social system they live in.

when people dont feel a social obligation, free is better. It is a decisions that every human makes almost every minute of their lives in many different ways.

"How much social obligation do i feel?"

Should i turn left here even though i know i'll block traffic for two minutes until i can turn?

Should i pay 10 cents more to buy a recycled product?

Should i pay 10 cents more to buy an american product?

everything, well almost everything , boils down to how much social obligation one feels. Social obligation being filtered through different concepts of "good, just, right" or whatever...

If you want to stop piracy (or make is less frequent), create social obligation (or a greater concept of social obligation, such as i am a member of a larger group then i thought) in individuals. Creating social obligation usually involves showing the benefits (fiscal, physical, or social/prestige) of social obligation to the individual.

this is all IMHO.

joe b.

 

[Black Omega]

Even with my limited knowledge, I know that it's possible to track someone down through their internet connection. So if I can both find the warez and find the person... then why can't someone, with the resources of a company and with government agency backing, do so?

WotC could hire one person to sit on a computer all day doing nothing but hunting for warez and tracking the perpetrators. I don't see why this is not a viable solution. Which is why I'm asking. Why is there piracy?

Hmm...ok. I'll try to answer the question you seem to be asking here. ' Why isn't piracy stopped easily?'

It's really not that easy. For example, if someone peeked in on my home computer they'd find a ton of mp3's they could question. I've ripped most of my CD collection. At present this is legal since I own the CD's and ripping the CD's for listening myself is considered Fair Use by the law. But they have no way of telling someone like me from someone simply downloading songs using Kazaa. So going after the computer users is not very efficient.

Going after sites is also tricky. In many cases they are not in counties that have or enforce copywrite laws, so legal recourse is limited. For non-centralized networks like Morpheus there's no one group, site, or person to go after.

Companies certainly do take piracy seriously. In the aftermath of 9/11 the music and motion picture industries tried to put a rider on the first anti-terrorism bill that would allow them to hack the computers of people suspected of piracy without having to worry about being sued for any damage caused. The rider was shot down fairly quickly.

 

[pogre]

Frankly, I think the vast majority of RPG stuff is underpriced. However, the reason for piracy has something to do with RPGs audience:

[huge_generalizations]They are younger (sub 40 - mostly sub 30), male, and computer literate. [/huge_generalizations]

This same group usually rips music, games, and other stuff off the web. It is something they do, and have grown immune to the damage they cause.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Why is there piracy?

Its a question of whether you're in the camp that believes in a free market society or the camp that's in favor of working for the community.

OK, maybe that elevates this to a political debate, which it really isn't. Really, its about someone wanting something and either not being able to or being unwilling to pay for it. Its about greed!

I really think its as simple as that. And if there are people that want it, there are others who are willing to give it to them. Those that provide stuff are usually given other pirated stuff, so in the end the pirates make off with more booty than you can imagine.