Sharing DDI Accounts: why isn't this like file sharing?

[Nifft]

Anyone who shares an account is violating the TOU by which they have right to use the account.

The text you quoted doesn't prohibit account sharing -- unless you try to sub-license your account to your friends, which nobody does. If each of your friends has his own account, they are obeying the letter of section 8.

There is a section which could be used to retaliate against shared logins, but what you quoted ain't it.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Peraion Graufalke]

I seem to recall that the last time they did an extra unscheduled update because the usual update broken something significant, they reset the download counter, so you could get the fixed update five times too.

That's correct.

 

[MrMyth]

Huh, that'll teach me. I could have sworn that wasn't the case.

I don't have any links on hand or specific quotes, but from what I recall of the situation:

-The five update limit is basically a bonus for customers, so that they don't need to worry about potential issues with getting updates, and makes it easy to reinstall it if they need to or if they actually have a few computers to put it on. Just like the lack of real DRM in the magazines is designed for customer convenience - even though these both mean that people can take advantage of this and share the benefits of their account.

-I recall WotC early on saying they are cool with a family using one account through the household.

-They are less cool with people sharing an account among an entire group of gamers.

-They've also indicated that they don't mean that one person can't show friends stuff on the compendium or help them make characters on his Character Builder - but that's a very different thing from using one account to install the Character Builder on five different people's computers, or sharing your account info with a dozen people to download the magazines and freely use the compendium.

-They haven't done anything to actively stop people from doing such things, but have warned that enough abuse of the system will probably result in bad things happening to the system in the long run, when the lawyers take notice of people's abuse and decide on some absurdly draconian response in retaliation. Basically, if people don't play nice now, everyone loses in the end.

Like I said, I can't guarantee this is their exact view of the situation, but it is the overall sense I've gotten from their comments when I've seen these topics discussed.

 

[Mallus]

The principle difference looks to me like one of scale.

People sharing a single DDI account are probably doing so among a group of 4-6 other people.

People uploading copyrighted material to a file-sharing network are potentially sharing the material with, err, a lot more than 4-6 other people.

This difference in scale makes one act look wrong and actionable and the other look, not-so-bad, unless, of course, you're jonesing for something to angst or moralize about.

 

[Artoomis]

... I'm too paranoid to share my passwords and such though, even with my IRL group!...

As a security professional, I'll chime in here. One should never, ever share one's account name and password with anyone.

It's a phenomenally bad idea for many reasons.

Allowing one to use your computer (supervised) to make up a character using Character builder, on the other hand, fine, ASFAIK, both from a security and legal perspective.

 

[Pyrex]

You don't have to give someone your password to "share your account".

Of the seven people in my group, 3-4 of us have active subscriptions. A couple months ago one of the others in our group actually used up his five updates in a month (All on machines he owns. He ended up having to pave several of his machines) and asked me to sign-in on his laptop during the game so he could use one of my updates to update the builder on that laptop.

Anyone who was hardcore about the letter of the TOU would tell me that was Account Sharing (i.e., bad) even though he never had my password.

OTOH, I really don't feel bad about it at all, and given that we both subscribe anyway I can't even imagine a WotC bean-counter complaining.

 

[Desdichado]

The principle difference looks to me like one of scale.

People sharing a single DDI account are probably doing so among a group of 4-6 other people.

People uploading copyrighted material to a file-sharing network are potentially sharing the material with, err, a lot more than 4-6 other people.

This difference in scale makes one act look wrong and actionable and the other look, not-so-bad, unless, of course, you're jonesing for something to angst or moralize about.

I disagree; I think the principle difference is one of intent. Putting stuff up on a file sharing network is making stuff available to anonymous users anywhere, and is a violation of copyright law. A group of 4-5 or so friends all sharing a DDI account is much more difficult; it's like the same principle as having one copy of a splatbook and passing it around the table. If it ever got challenged in court (which I think is unlikely) I think WotC would have a really hard time overcoming fair use doctrine for friends sharing an account.

 

[MrMyth]

I disagree; I think the principle difference is one of intent. Putting stuff up on a file sharing network is making stuff available to anonymous users anywhere, and is a violation of copyright law. A group of 4-5 or so friends all sharing a DDI account is much more difficult; it's like the same principle as having one copy of a splatbook and passing it around the table. If it ever got challenged in court (which I think is unlikely) I think WotC would have a really hard time overcoming fair use doctrine for friends sharing an account.

It is definitely a tougher line to draw. On the other hand, I think it goes a bit beyond just passing a gamebook around. In that case, you still don't have more than one person at a time who really has access, and there may well be encouragment to the other people to eventually pick the book up themselves if they really want to use content in it.

With a DDI account, sharing full access gives your friends pretty much everything, at no cost to you, and completely removes the chances they will get an account on their own. I'd be surprised if a court truly considered it fair use to distribute copies of a piece of software you purchased.

Of course, I don't remotely imagine WotC would ever bother going to court over this. If it ends up becoming a real problem, I suspect we'll just see some form of absolutely miserable DRM put into place that makes everyone unhappy.

 

[redboxrazor]

If I buy a cd, it's not stealing if my friend borrows it whenever he wants to listen to it.

Or am I missing something?

It would be a different story if I copied the cd for him.

 

[Votan]

It is definitely a tougher line to draw. On the other hand, I think it goes a bit beyond just passing a gamebook around. In that case, you still don't have more than one person at a time who really has access, and there may well be encouragment to the other people to eventually pick the book up themselves if they really want to use content in it.

I wonder if this changes should you show up and actually use the application on a friends computer?

In any case, my solution is going to be to install it on my (personal) laptop and just be ready to hand the laptop around if people want to experiment with the character builder.