Staples refuses to print my PDFs....

[Dannyalcatraz]

AFAIK, no difference.

The problem is mainly because of paranoia and (as has been pointed out) past bad acts by the companies themselves.

Having been burned once, the entire industry has overreacted terribly.

 

[Mark CMG]

Self-Publishers should- if I may be so bold- make the copy permission notice either part of the filename or in BIG letters on the 1st or second page.

Would right on the same page with the rest of the copyright information be good enough?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Legally speaking- yes, and in fact, it could be anywhere in the product, since, after all, its just a reminder of the existence of certain laws and that you're aware of them.

Practically speaking? You want it where the poor schmoe working the copier can't possibly miss it.

When they teach you legal technical writing, one of the most often cited rules of thumb is "Tell them what you're going to say, then say it, then tell them what you just said."

What you're trying to do is protect your copyright while ensuring that your end users get the kind of full utility out of it they expect, all while operating in a slightly paranoid environment.

By putting that permission in as much of an up-front position as possible, you make it easy.

 

[jdrakeh]

Practically speaking? You want it where the poor schmoe working the copier can't possibly miss it.

Perhaps prefacing it with "Dear Copy Center Employee" would be an option

 

[madelf]

As for searching you, they really should just ask you for proof that you didn't steal anything (i.e. ask to match your receipt to your merchandise) and if you refuse and they still think you're a shoplifter, detain you until the police arrive- not because they can't do it, but because they're more likely to search you in a way that violates your rights. When a private citizen searches someone, they are held to the same standards as the police.

Don't even the police have to have probable cause (or a warrant) to search someone, or their property (which I'd say a bag of stuff I just purchased is my property)? I wouldn't think it would be all that hard for a lawyer to shoot holes in the idea that an alarm from some electric scanner which is wrong more often than it's right constituted probable cause. I certainly don't believe a (probably) malfunctioning scanner is sufficient cause to use any kind of force on someone (though I'll grant the law might disagree).

I'd really like to know what responsibilty the store has to back up their "suspicion" with something halfway convincing before they decide to lay a hand on somebody, and what responsibility they have to the victim of their actions if they're wrong.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I know the alarms are not exactly dependable- I set them off walking into stores because of some of my electronics...and supposedly, because of my jewelry with certain systems.

However, that alarm going off is sufficient probable cause to stop you in any jurisdiction of which I'm aware. Once they have that, they can do all kinds of things. If you refuse a search, for instance, they (usually) will contact the police, who will arrest you if you don't consent to a search...and then they can search you incident to the arrest.

I know of no case in which a laywer has successfully argued otherwise, except in those cases when management knew that the alarm was malfunctioning, and that doesn't mean giving the occasional false alarm, I mean going off for all kinds of reasons (like birds, a stiff wind, funky jewelry, etc.) and still depending on it.

The justified use of force comes in not when the alarm goes off, but when you refuse to be cooperative with a simple request of proof of your purchases and attempt to leave the premises, and is limited to that which is reasonably required to detain you. It cannot escalate to deadly force unless and until you escalate the situation to that level or present an obvious threat to use deadly force yourself (for instance, if what you were suspected of stealing was the gun that now resides in your jacket pocket).

There are other anti-shoplifting measures out there- for a while, exploding security tags, expecially those with dyes, were popular. They made the merchandise unusable and often marked the shoplifter.

Unfortunately, they were quite bulky, and if some clerk forgets to take it off...POW! And that happened enough times to make some retailers quite leery of them (something about honest people getting burns, dye, and plastic shrapnel being bad for the public image).

Visual monitors are quite effective- just ask someone working security in Las Vegas. But they are only as effective as the people doing the monitoring, and that costs money. And really, visual monitor systems only provide descriptions to police as opposed to prevention.

Ultimately, the cheap, non-explosive, easily concealed beeper tags won out.

If they are wrong, their responsibility depends upon the totality of the circumstances.

If you showed them your merch and receipt, then released you, its kind of no harm, no foul. Depending on the timeline, you may still have to talk to the police, but that is highly unlikely.

If you showed them your merch and receipt and they still detain you; if you were stopped because of profiling; if its revealed that they had no probable cause (they knew the alarm was defective) and so forth- you have a civil case at least, and possibly a criminal one.

 

[kensanata]

US fair use law lets you photocopy books you own for personal use, whatever the copyright owner says. Is it really different for e-books?

Well, in Switzerland there's an article in our copyright law that allows you to make copies for private use, but the copyright owners still deserve compensation for your copies. The law provides for copyright collectives. Thus, a copying machine will count the number of copies it made, and the print shop will pay a certain amount of money for each copy made to the copyright collective, and they will then redistribute the money to copyright holders.

Similar solutions exist for tapes (VHS, audio): Somewhere along the chain, payment is made to a copyright collective. Things changed when software came along (and Swiss copyright law has an extra article for software), and when CDs were being used for data instead of music. Suddenly there were two kinds of CDs: They were exactly the same, but some were licensed to be used to copy music, and some where not. Needless to say, the raw audio CDs are no longer sold, and the data CDs are used to copy music, and thus copyright owners are not getting their money. Similarly, people put music on the MP3 player without paying money to copyright collectives. Actually they are trying to change this right now here in Switzerland.

My point being: Probably printing a PDF document is different from copying a printed book because the copyright collective doesn't get any money, and thus copyright holders are not being compensated for the copying you are allowed to make for your own personal use.

 

[madelf]

I know of no case in which a laywer has successfully argued otherwise, except in those cases when management knew that the alarm was malfunctioning, and that doesn't mean giving the occasional false alarm, I mean going off for all kinds of reasons (like birds, a stiff wind, funky jewelry, etc.) and still depending on it.

I'm not talking about "the occasional false alarm" either. The things don't malfunction occasionally, they malfunction all the time.

It's been my experience that the things are mistaken far more often than they are correct. I've never seen one of them actually catch someone, but the local Walmart (on busy days) has had to have more than one "greeter" checking bags of people leaving the store because the alarm goes off that often. It's not unusual to hear it go off once or twice while waiting at the checkout, and I avoid busy periods as much as possible. Going by comments of the folks working there, this is business as usual. And its far from the only store I've seen having such problems, only the one I'm most exposed to. So, going by my experience, those systems malfunction more often than not and I just find it personally hard to swallow as reasonable cause.

I've never refused to go along with a bag check over it yet (though I have just kept walking a couple times when there was no one actively flagging me down), and probably wouldn't as long as the request was polite and apologetic, but if someone decided to pull an attitude with me over one of those things going off, I'd be just the sort of stubborn jerk to make them call the cops out before I'd let them look at a thing.

 

[bodhi]

Actually... that is not for RPGnow or DrivethruRPG to decide.
That would be up to the individual publisher (and though I'm sure most of them would allow it, it's a little disturbing that the retailer is making the assumption that they all will).

DriveThruRPG's FAQ says: As long as the eBook in question allows you to print from it, then you may print it at a printing store.

RPG Now's says: Print unlimited copies (for your own use): write on them, draw on them, make notes in the margins.
But that's listed as a benefit of PDF. It don't think it mentions copyright issues directly at all.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The things don't malfunction occasionally, they malfunction all the time.

I understand your complaint- frequently it seems that their sensitivity is set too high or there is a short...

But that, as they say, is a question of fact, and would be decided upon by a jury of your peers.

After you had been arrested.

And searched.

Possibly beaten up by some guy in holding.

Its just friendly advice- don't get physical with someone who thinks you're a shoplifter.

Talk is cheaper. So is showing your reciept.