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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pawsplay" data-source="post: 4951922" data-attributes="member: 15538">I am not prognosticating about anything. I am simply talking about the balance of creator rights with the rights of the public. What I am suggesting is that it is improper to label someone a pirate simply because they advocate more lenient and (IMO, of course) reasonable positions on copyright enforcement. My gut feeling is that WotC is not interested in "closing the frontier," they have simply found themselves operating under business constraints that persuaded them to take a very conservative position on sharing their IP. I doubt they have any interest in sueing anyone who does not represent an active threat to their business and IP. Despite all the BEWARE OF DOG marketing and licensing, they have yet to make a move against anyone involved in normal fair use activites, fans who (at least in spirit) adhere to common sense policies, and licensees making an earnest attempt to work within the terms of the license, however acrobatically. On the other hand, they went after some non-notable infringers, which would not bother me except so far as I wonder, A) why these guys?, and B) what penalties are they facing? I disagree with pulling the PDFs and I think it not only represents an out-dated response to infringement but ultimately seems to interfere only with the activities of non-infringing fans interested in buying the old products. It has little to do with the modern market, and it has nothing to do with habitual pirates. If they were tired of maintaining them on their web site they could very easily have licensed them out. I can only conclude pulling the PDFs was part of a wider strategy to consolidate the new D&D brand and increase reliance on subscription services. Again, not something I'm happy about. Ultimdately, I think it amounts to feeding the pirates while simultaneously angering fans such as myself who have spent and would like to spend more money on vintage products. As for the infringement suit... I would be very picky who I sued. Currently, the potential penalties for infringement are outlandish. I can imagine several compromise positions WRT to older editions: licensing out the old products to some party, licensing them freely to the public, identifying products or parts of products as OGC, and so forth.On the other hand, I can imagine no "compromise" on 4e products. Clearly, Wizards feels no one is entitled to own complete digital copies of their products. I think that's... almost absurd. I can understand, but I cannot agree it is a reasonable strategy in any way except (maybe) short to medium term profits on 4e. Eventually, when interested in 4e lags, as happens with all editions, they are going to have a lot of overheard on a less-used online product, and in theory tons of product and support could evaporate. In fact, come 5e, I might bet on it. What better way to sell 5e than to ensure 4e can never survive in all its robustness past its current online support? Hobbyists would be left scrabbling for a few hardbound copies of "Best of Dragon" or furtively printing off classes and monsters from the web.</blockquote>

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