RPG Piracy

[Drawmack]

If you want to drastically decrease pirating of books there are a couple of things you can do.


For PDF releases:
You can use scripting in a PDF that can send an email through netscape, outlook or outlook express without the reader's knowledge. So you send the email to an email address that has a bot set up to check it which will then compare the from address of the received email against a database of purchasers email addresses. If the email address is not found the person is sent an email asking them to provide proof of purchase with the email address they want assigned to that proof and informing them that if they open the document again without doing this legal action would be taken. No hacking into systems, no worrying about people, no nothing like that.

For Print publications:
You can use high gloss paper which does not scan properly except on the highest end scanners (anyone notice that there are not a whole lot of bastion books in pdf format?).

You can watermark the books so that when scanned or photocoppied a watermark appears that makes the scan or copy unreadable.

These are both low cost options. The pdf only option would be a bit of an upfront cost but once it was set-up it would not incure future costs.

I am firmly against piracy but I believe there are two entities responsible for stoping it.
1) Us by not pirating
2) The publishers by taking a few simple steps to make it more difficult.

 

[evil_rmf]

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.

OK, I'll buy that. But what if when <insert favorite small press or pdf-only author> was trying to decide whether or not to start their business looked at all of the piracy and just said, "Screw it, there is too much piracy." and never got off the ground? We would have missed out out on some great and innovative products. Sure someone else would have stepped up, but what are we missing out on because of piracy? We'll never know, I guess.

 

[evil_rmf]

For PDF releases:
You can use scripting in a PDF that can send an email through netscape, outlook or outlook express without the reader's knowledge.

I can guarantee you I, and others much smarter than me, would know, and the word would get out.

I would never purchase a product which did something like that. No way, no how.

EDIT:
I do like the watermark idea. I wonder how much that would add to the cost of the books. Again, piracy leads to higher costs to the honest consumer.

 

[MEG Hal]

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.

Misread--my bad

 

[evil_rmf]

Misread--my bad

No prob! It's tough being human!

 

[Drawmack]

I can guarantee you I, and others much smarter than me, would know, and the word would get out.

I would never purchase a product which did something like that. No way, no how.

but you wouldn't pirate it either. The only reason not to purchase it is because you wish to pirate it. On the other hand I'm just guessing you don't use NWN, Win XP, or a multitude of other software that does similar things either. As far as finding out I'd recommend that the publisher tell people up front that they did it. Sure the savy individual could rip the code out to get around it, but we've all already agreed you can't stop it you can only decrease it.

 

[MEG Hal]

If you want to drastically decrease pirating of books there are a couple of things you can do.



For Print publications:
You can use high gloss paper which does not scan properly except on the highest end scanners (anyone notice that there are not a whole lot of bastion books in pdf format?).

You can watermark the books so that when scanned or photocoppied a watermark appears that makes the scan or copy unreadable.

These are both low cost options. The pdf only option would be a bit of an upfront cost but once it was set-up it would not incure future costs.

I am firmly against piracy but I believe there are two entities responsible for stoping it.
1) Us by not pirating
2) The publishers by taking a few simple steps to make it more difficult.

My issues with the print version are that then people who are copying items for themsleves will have issues, it is not easy but I want the customers who buy the book to use the book and if need be make copies of a few pages for in-game personal use, these options would negate that and that would upset me.

 

[evil_rmf]

but you wouldn't pirate it either. The only reason not to purchase it is because you wish to pirate it. On the other hand I'm just guessing you don't use NWN, Win XP, or a multitude of other software that does similar things either. As far as finding out I'd recommend that the publisher tell people up front that they did it. Sure the savy individual could rip the code out to get around it, but we've all already agreed you can't stop it you can only decrease it.

"I" don't pirate as it is. Stuff like that would get cracked. My firewall would not allow outgoing e-mail anyway. And I'd hate to miss out on a great product because of someone's mis-guided, though understandable and maybe justified, attempts to protect their work.

As for NWN, nope, don't play it. And as for XP, I've nipped out as much as I can .... But we're stearing off topic.

 

[Drawmack]

Something just occured to me.

For everyone who is admitting piracy and then saying that we can't get probable cause to search your machine without hacking your machine. I've got news you just gave us probable cause.

Look closely at your post. It has the time, date and your IP address right in it. This is everything that is needed to track you down and get a warrant to search your computer.


It's like standing in front of the police station holding your wanted poster next to your face saying they've got no reason to suspect that I'm me.

 

[Sagan Darkside]

My issues with the print version are that then people who are copying items for themsleves will have issues, it is not easy but I want the customers who buy the book to use the book and if need be make copies of a few pages for in-game personal use, these options would negate that and that would upset me.

I'm one of those people who photocopies adventures and supplements - so I can make highlights/notes all over them, but if this watermark idea helped put an end to theft- I would be willing do it some other way.

One other minor suggestion for consumers to help fight piracy- ostracize those that are involved in the behavior. At the game table and on forums such as this- the ignore button is useful for that.

SD