RPG Piracy

[WizarDru]

I still stand behind my assertation that the D&D core books are available in the open gaming foundation site for all practical purposes. WizarDru said that they are missing the one essential table; that's right, but is one table really a justification to buy $30 book in peoples minds?

But an inexpereinced player would NOT be able to use the SRD to play D&D. It's not just one table: it's the rules illustrations and examples, it's the extended discussion of how the game works and why it works the way it does. It's the layout, the flavor text and the extended discussion of things like who Hextor is, and what his followers believe. The SRD is NOT a complete game, it is a Reference (hence the name) for more experienced players. It is not, IMHO, a substitute for the actual core books.

I don't dispute that you could use the SRD to play the game AFTER you've learned the game from the core books. I disagree that you could learn to play FROM the SRD.

Sigil: I'm glad you clarified your position. I agree with you more than not. I don't agree that the issue is always cut-and-dried, but I do think that intentionally sitting on a property can be wrong. But to look at it from another perspective, consider the movie rights to 'The Hobbit'. New Line currently holds these, even though there has been no discussion (according to Peter Jackson, who presumably would know) of actually making such a film. This is to defend the integrity of the currently trilogy, so that someone doesn't purchase the rights and attempt to produce a vastly inferior product merely to try and ride the coat-tails of the current trilogy's success.

Other reasons, such as dissatisfaction with one's previous work, should be considered. Tolkien obviously wasn't happy with the Silmarillion, based on what I've heard and the fact that it was finished decades before it's post-homous release. Stephen King didn't re-release any of his Bachman material until well after he was established, for fear of the damage it might do to his success.

But I think that's a different animal from what you're discussing, which is the act of a publisher, not a creator, withholding material. I'm not sure I can recall many instances of this, however. Usually, the 'publish or perish' idea should apply: a publishing house rarely benefits from not releasing its material unless said material would not make them money in a printing run. But in those cases, they may still hold value, but not enough to justify printing them. For example, the characters from Charlton Comics were not earning enough revenue to continue publishing the comics in which they starred...but they were valuable enough to sell as a property to DC comics, and eventually folded into DC's line (such as the Blue Beetle, Captain Atom and others). Not published is not necessarily the same thing as 'abandoned'.

My personal preferred use of file-sharing technology is for access to materials that are not readily or commercially available in the US. For example, there has been nor is there planned to be a domestic release of the Japanese movie "Battle Royale", so I downloaded it. I haven't been able to follow Angel this year, due to restrictions of time, so I've been downloading the episodes and watching them at my leisure. I no longer bother with most anime, as its readily available in a higher-quality format (and remembering what it was like 20 years ago, to get a 6th-generation dub on VHS and be happy, I can appreciate the quality) and getting and watching said tv episodes doesn't interfere with me getting the DVD box sets (not to mention the show is freely broadcast, to begin with).

clockworkjoe: I'm not sure what your second point is, exactly, other than to illustrate how bad the theft can become. If someone steals a copy of Malhavoc's 'Book of Eldritch Might' and enjoys it, why is it a good thing that they then will steal the whole of Malhavoc's catalog? Because I sincerely doubt that they're going to go and legitimately buy BoEM II, when they can readily download that as quickly as the first one.

I wanted the BoVD and d20 Modern books, but up until recently had no job and a family to support. So I DID WITHOUT. When I got a job, I purchased them. Could I have gotten them online? Certainly. Did I? No. When I was in college, and had very little revenue, I did the same. Did I want a nice hard-bound copy of GURPS 3rd ed? Yes. Did I stick with my dog-eared, heavily used paperback copy? Yes. Because I examined my costs, and decided it wasn't worth it to me at that time.

 

[jasper]

OVERPRICE MY HAIRY BUTT.
Let look at the prices then and now.
PHB 1980 around 12.95 DMG 15.95 no color
PHB 2002 around 29.95 DMG 29.95 too much color
Soda was 50 cents in most machines and still is but soda is common commodity If coke goes up it get a dr. pepper, Pepsi, RC etc.
Now what was the minimum wage from www.dol.gov
Jan 1 1980 3.10
Jan 1 1981 3.35
Apr 1 1990 3.80
Apr 1, 1991 4.25
Oct 1, 1996 4.75
Sep 1, 1997 5.15

So 1980 you work at MickyDees 4.17 hours for the PHB and 5.14 for the DMG
In 2002 you work at Mickydees 5.81 hours for both.
So for the increase of almost an hour you get books in color plus we didn’t have splat books. And I still heard arguments back then the books were too expensive. Plus some one has mention the low print runs price breaks, I seen a region newsletter publisher ask for 1 page of junk material to up the page count to get the discount.

Please if you too lazy or a thief no matter what we say will change your mind about stealing.

And if you so darn smart you can create you own splat books or rules.
Now if WOTC would go back to paper and black and white pages then and only then would I tolerate your argurment if you very good at presenting your argument.

And all you thieves out there who boast about it make me GLAD I been too busy to go to cons. I had thieves walk off with figures, dice (most of those could be honest mistakes), modules, and dragon mags.

I seen scum suckers like you laugh and boast the took advantage of twelve year old on that battle master dungeon attack system. I forget the name right now it is the one that the figure is on the base and you click down after combat. Love the look of dragon pieces but after starting to sit in and heard this. BYE. The group had ages sixteen to mid twenties. And people at the local game store wonder how come I don’t want to play there.

To some out there gaming is not a luxury but an addiction! Losers!

Haggle! Haggle Mr. Sigil I can’t haggle a gallon of gas, a gallon of milk etc. But I maybe able to haggle a point or two off my mortgage but houses are too expensive I just some of you will just steal one. SORRY did read the whole text.

Also you have more companies wanting your dollar now. Back in the eighties we had TSR and Judges Guild (and they had to do an end run around TSR). So please you are STEALING these products because you want to. Hey I have yet even use all the monsters out of MM1 of the AD&D and I been playing since 1980.

Wrong mad man you go into orbit with so whatever law is pass that sigil is okay with it. It is NOT immoral to disobey an unjust law. Not agreeing that downloading PDFs without paying for them is such a case, but there are cases where I do consider it acceptable. To replace a lost or stolen document or to obtain a convenient copy of materials I own.
So someone steals from you, you steal from me.
So you get stupid so you steal from me.
So you too lazy to pack 30 splat books to the game so you steal from me.
Plus what is it with not stealing. Is stealing moral if we robbing the rich to take a cut and pass to the poor. So the taxmen would then just go beat up the poor and take it back. Aka Robin Hood. Don’t get me start there.

And you correct no one can stop a determine crook, so I have to suffer due more (insert favorite stupid) laws. I can’t do fireworks because Miss Molly was upset that Johnny blew his hand off because he got stupid with fireworks.

Tburdett and his economic Darwinism theory taken to a silly level does allow WOTC to change the law in their favor.
Ding dong.
Tburdett, “Who is it?”
“It the R.I.!
Tburdett opens door.
Tburdett, “R.I. What is the R.I.?”
Roland, “Run it for it. It is the RPG Inquisition!”
R.I. “ No one expects the Inquisition! Come along quietly.”
Tburdett, “hey fair cop. I have the complete spat book on my hard drive.”
R.I. “To save time we can shoot you now or wait till we take you down town.”
Daffy duck, “shoot him now! Shoot him now!”


Archibald gives a good example why some stores do not prosecute some shoplifters. But this is a company/publisher staying we will forgive Mr. Jasper but Jasper still has to return the product. Or in this case delete it.

Slash does you quote about the government being in charge of stopping pirates also apply to other law breakers. So will you try to stop the mugger beating up my mom on your front sidewalk or just call the cops?

 

[Storm Raven]

"Stealing" is a word that I normally apply to "taking a real-world, concrete item that exists to the five senses from its current owner." I would like to know where in human evolution that the term "stealing" has changed from having the above definition, to including abstract ideas under the same umbrella.

A few hundred years ago, with the introduction of various copyright statutes, in our legal history, mostly starting in England.

Example: Two-thousand years ago, one could not have stolen an idea. A loaf of bread, yes. A shiny gold bracelet? Yes. The Pythagorean Theorem, no. The words of the Old Testament? No.

You still cannot steal an idea, because only the expression of the idea is protected. Ideas are still open for use.

 

[Ysgarran]

Because its illegal for them to hack into our computers. And if your someone like me, who sets KaZaA to not share files (i can d/l, but ppl cant d/l from me), they cant find me. And it would cost them too much to stop everyone, because when one person is stopped, another starts.

Which version of Kazaah do you have? I help friends and family often with their computers at home and it is amazing the amount of spyware that is on their machines. Depending on the version of Kazaah that you have, it will not run if you uninstall the bundled spyware. I have not closely read their licence agreement lately either, but I would not be surprised that this spy-ware is part of the agreement in using Kazaah.

Cost will be less of an issue as time goes on. A simple form letter to the ISP saying please drop this person from your customer list or otherwise we will take action does not cost much. Your point regarding trying to stop this is a valid one though, especially when you start figuring in off-shore ISPs or those based in eastern europe, Russia or Yugoslavia. Those are much harder to influence.

This is a tactic for the publishers but the record companies have started putting 'poisoned' content out on the peer-to-peer systems. These mp3s are (currently) indistinguishable from the real music but about 20 seconds into the song the mp3 will inform the user that this is pirated music. A PDF that had a couple of pages of real content and then was filled in with a piracy notice or links to your web-site would increase the time that people would have to devote to getting real content.

later,
Ysgarran.

p.s.
What I worry about regarding whether one can stop piracy or not is that eventually a network system similiar to the one in China will eventually be put in place here in the United States. We already have Carnivore (FBI) and Echelon (NSA). China has had a decent amount of success blocking content that they deem 'unacceptable'. It does not work as well for the computer literate but the average user is blocked from content the Chinese government doesn't like.

Finally:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/07/arts/design/07SAMP.html?8hpib
A commentary on "Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age"
http://www.illegal-art.org/

 

[evil_rmf]

If you steal a loaf of bread, you may as well say that nobody lost anything because you wouldn't have bought it anyway. After all, it may have been wheat bread when you prefer white bread.

In principle I agree with your point, and I appreciate what you are getting at, however, this analogy doesn't quite hold up. My points are nit-picky to be sure, but I think it illustrates that RPG piracy has somewhat different results than theft of physical objects.

If you steal a loaf of bread, that loaf will never be paid for by a customer. 1 unit of "loaf of bread" was not sold to a customer.

To scan a copy of an existing book means that the book must have been purchased at some point, and was paid for by a customer at some point. 1 unit of "RPG book" was sold.

In the example of the loaf of bread, the loss is soley absorbed by the merchant, and probably passed on to the customer is some manner. There is a 1:1 ratio of incident of theft to loss of units. The distributor, however, did make his money when he delivered that loaf of bread.

RPGs are different, if someone buys the DMG, scans it, and puts it out on the web, kazza, hotline, whatever, then thousands are going to get hold of it. There is no accurate way to measure the loss to the publisher, as they fill orders placed by the distributor. The publisher and distributor only see demand for their product, not a true count of how many people use the products. Certainly, there are some who would not have bought it anyway, either because they don't have the money, are cheapskates, or they know it will show up for free, eventually. But there is no way to measure the actual loss incurred by the publisher, distributor, or LGS.

I think the people who really get clobbered by this are the LGS and the smaller PDF-only shops. Not only do the LGS lose out because of piracy, they get squeezed by the quite legal on-line auctions and sales. The PDF-only shops get clobered outright. To download these illicit copies of either scanned books or pdf-only products, you need a decent machine and broadband connection. If you can afford those (or get someone to provide them to you like your mom and dad) then you can afford the core rulebooks and the PDF-only products. You don't need everything. If you think you do, get a job (or an extra job, or a better job) and pay for them.

While I showed above that it is at best extremely difficult to quantify actual loss due to RPG piracy, I for one believe that it is not a victimless crime. The PDF-only and LGS stores are who are paying the price. To me, these are the folks who can least bear it. Even if you don't mind sticking it to Hasbro, they will see less demand, and therefore we will see fewer and more expensive RPG products in the future.

Of course, I'm sure some of those out there who collect RPG PDFs will be happy with this, as it will make it easier to complete their collections....

 

[MEG Hal]

In principle I agree with your point, and I appreciate what you are getting at, however, this analogy doesn't quite hold up. My points are nit-picky to be sure, but I think it illustrates that RPG piracy has somewhat different results than theft of physical objects.

If you steal a loaf of bread, that loaf will never be paid for by a customer. 1 unit of "loaf of bread" was not sold to a customer.

I swore I was not going to post---bahhhh!!!

So in this example stealing the loaf of bread from the old lady who just bought th ebread is OK..? It was paid for, now granted she is now out a loaf of bread but you get my point. People say they will NEVER buy the book so no loss. But if you could not get the book electronically I bet more sales would come of that. Ok, I am done here.

 

[evil_rmf]

I swore I was not going to post---bahhhh!!!

So in this example stealing the loaf of bread from the old lady who just bought th ebread is OK..? It was paid for, now granted she is now out a loaf of bread but you get my point. People say they will NEVER buy the book so no loss. But if you could not get the book electronically I bet more sales would come of that. Ok, I am done here.

Absolutley not. It is not OK. That was not the intent of my post. The intent was to point out that RPG piracy is actually worse than the theft of the loaf of bread. I actually took up for guys like you.

 

[Numion]

But if you could not get the book electronically I bet more sales would come of that. Ok, I am done here.

You'd bet, sure. The point here is that it could be either way. In music industry the experts aren't yet sure wether inet DLing of records decrease or in fact increase sales of the record. I read somewhere (relieable, eh? ) that the rampant mp3 DLing of Eminems latest disc actually helped it on the market.

Only products inet sharing is going to hurt for sure are bad products, because they won't get the added sales from good buzz. But whos loss it really is if companies that make bad products lose sales?

 

[evil_rmf]

But whos loss it really is if companies that make bad products lose sales?

One man's trash is another's treasure. Who are any of us, as a single consumer, to decide what products are good and bad?

 

[Numion]

One man's trash is another's treasure. Who are any of us, as a single consumer,r, to decide what products are good and bad?

Not as a single consumer, no. I was referring to the fact that a good product could actually benefit from scanned inet pirate-versions, thru generated good publicity. Bad products wouldn't get much good publicity and would thus lose.

Kind of a majority vote on the product. That would serve the RPG community well; companies would try harder to make good products.