RPG Piracy

[Drawmack]

"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.

the email is sent through your email program, you're firewall blocks you're email program. Interesting technology does your harddrive disallow writes as well?

 

[Regdar]

What bothers me is that some players and GMs have allowed people show up to the game table with copied materials. Sometimes people have even showed up to games held at local game shops even when the game is on a shealf near the table. No one says a damned thing about it. If we made these people uncomfortable about it they may think twice about the outright theft of the still inprint gaming products.

The problem here, is the inability to know if the material was bought, scanned from their own book so it doesn't get damaged or various other options. Bah it's not always theft.

 

[evil_rmf]

Except for Hal and few others, the publishers have been, um, exceedingly silent in the thread.

Have they just given up and accept this as the cost of doing business, or are they taking names and IP addresses as Drawmack has pointed out?

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

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

Excellent point. The cost of RPGs has actually decreased over the years. The third edition books are also larger, more text and all that.

 

[evil_rmf]

the email is sent through your email program, you're firewall blocks you're email program. Interesting technology does your harddrive disallow writes as well?

My machine at home, where i would be looking through my RPG stuff is not mail enabled. I have another machine which tunnels through my firewall and uses an external mail client for mail reading.

No, mailto: does not work from my main home machine. incoming packets on port 25 are bounced off of my firewall.

 

[evil_rmf]

Interesting technology does your harddrive disallow writes as well?

Please drop the condescending attitiude. Just because something doesn't occur to you in a few minutes of thought doesn't mean it is impossible.

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

Except for Hal and few others, the publishers have been, um, exceedingly silent in the thread.

They've been active in the past. Ryan Dancy made a number of very good points on threads several months ago, but it can be a little hard retyping the same points over and over.

It's the nature of message boards that new people will come on and discuss topics that have already been covered in the lifetime of the forum. That's perfectly fine and understandable. But you can't ask people to constantly retype the same thing over and over.

 

[evil_rmf]

. But you can't ask people to constantly retype the same thing over and over.

You're right, I'm sure this topic has been flogged to death before.

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

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

I'm not really talking about a couple of laws that happened in one country. I'm more of talking about the entire construct from the dawn of human history, all the way to modern times. I'd like to see the increasing crutch that the Humanity organism places on abstract things decribed in full detail, all the way from 2+2=4 to the internet. (Which is obviously not possible on an EnWorld messageboard.)

We have come so far that stealing abstract candy from abstract babies in abstract carriages is a crime. (Not that I am advocating a change; I'm just concerned that many people do not believe that abstract things have value. And as all Planescape fans know: belief is power.)

[We believe that all 6 billion people on the planet could have "money" in the bank, and yet if all 6,000,000,000 of us decided to withdraw our cash, the entire economy of the entire world would crumble. There is not enough paper cash to go around. (This is completely disregarding the fact that paper money is also an abstraction.)]

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

Define both "idea" and "expression" and I may agree with you.

*Tiptoeing lightly through metaphysics*

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I tend not to see a difference between an idea and the expression of an idea. They are one and the same, IMHO.

 

[Drawmack]

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.

Hal,
This is a case of having your cake and eating it to. I think that is customers wanted the book they would deal with it. I also think that if one publisher does it, it will quickly become standard practice. In the UK versions of WotC books they have a UV strip that creates a black line down the center of the page which cannot be removed, but they do not do this in the US versions. If you want to stop piracy then you need to look in the mirror. For example I do not pirate because that is doing my part to stop it. When I hear of someone pirating I calmly explain to them how harmful it is to the undustry because that is my part to stop it. However, you are a publisher and if you are not doing everything possible (including monetary restrictions) to make it more difficult to pirate your books then you are not doing your part. This may seem a bit hard nosed, that's probably because it is.

Let me put it this way. If someone produces a car where the keeys from all their cars are interchangeable, then complains about theft rates do they really have a right? It is the accessory before the fact addage. By not making it difficult to pirate your work you are an accessory to said piracy.

Edit: fixed tag twice