Torrent throwdown on the Wizards board

[warlockwannabe]

To steal means you take something away from someone. If I steal a car, the owner doesn't have it. If I download a song, the owner still has full powers over it. Don't forget that stealing has a profit intention (selling a car, in example). Downloading has no economical profit (if you do, then it's illegal). Downloading doesn't equal stealing.

Harvard studies, among others, reached this conclussion :

*

You know what that means? That people who download stuff wouldn't have paid for it anyways. And the people who download and buy the same product don't count for "stadistics".
If right now I download 25 D&D books that I do not own, I'm causing zero economical harm to WotC, since I wouldn't have bought them anyways. Oh, and I am not breaking my nation's law.


*If you want to read the full source :

The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales
An Empirical Analysis
Felix Oberholzer-Gee
Harvard University
Koleman Strumpf
University of Kansas


PS : Comparing piracy and murder to downloading stuff screams "brainwashing" and "lack of any valid point" like no other thing.

Piratecat, I would gladly have a conversation with you, by e-mail, about the subject.

Well, one problem with quoting anyone in academia is youll find just as many desenters. but despite anything they might say about such nonsense, the basic fact is this. If a company also sells pdfs of their products, and wotc does, i believe, than the fact the those illegal pdfs are out there means that they were not paid for, resulting in a loss. This is ridiculously simple, if a company charges x bucks for a pdf, then y amount of people dont pay for it...Guess what!!! That means X times y is the amount of money that the company should have gotten but dosent. Simple math seems very simple indeed.

 

[Jack99]

QFT.

We're not talking about people who are, say, blogging against a repressive dictatorship, leaking documents showing corporate or political malfeasance, revealing important news the authorities (in whatever nation) don't want revealed. We're talking about people who can't *wait a week* to *play a game*. Wrapping yourself in the flag of civil disobedience, putting yourself on the same platform at those who faced firehoses, dogs, tanks, and lynch mobs in America and elsewhere over the years, is not just factually incorrect, it's a moral obscenity. You're not fighting censorship or sticking it to the man, you're just sneaking into the movie theatre, without even the risk of the local rent-a-cop catching you and calling your Mom.

Very funny, and yet oh so true.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Piratecat, I would gladly have a conversation with you, by e-mail, about the subject.

In that case, you should shoot him an e-mail, a PM or post on Meta. It's probably very hard to catch him in such a rapidly moving thread.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Nifft]

What about in this case? I, like many others, have preordered the books. The company has already taken my money, but has not yet provided the product. Legally, I own the product now; am I not allowed to view the material I have already paid for?

I wonder if the time-shifting clause of fair use stipulates the direction in time.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Novem5er]

Using something yourself that you have paid for is legal. Loaning, giving, or selling your physical copy to your friend (or a total stranger) is legal. Copying a couple of pages so your friend can borrow them is legal. Copying it wholesale (whether by scanning or typing it out) and giving your friend a copy is ILLEGAL, but isn't worth the cost of prosecution.

Your examples confuse me. It's "okay" to buy a PHB and give it away for free. But what if THAT person then gives it away for free? The second person didn't buy it, but has distributed it.

You say it's "okay" to copy a couple of pages. Why? Copying a few pages or the whole book is a matter of scale. You're still "distributing" content. What if a group of roommates buy 1 PHB and any of them can access at any given time? Is this okay because they either all have to be viewing the book at the same time, or they have to take turns viewing it separately?

What if the roommates didn't buy the book, but it was given to them by someone who DID buy it? Now you have a whole group of people accessing material that none of them paid for. Would we call these people thieves? Are they wrong?

So what if one of these room mates photocopies some pages (or the whole book)? What if one of the room mates uses a typewriter to transcribe the whole dang book... from memory? Is someone not allowed to produce information that they have stored in their own head?!

That may sound ridiculous, but it's possible. What's MORE possible is that someone could memorize sections and write it sections at a time. They could memorize information only as long as it takes to read it and then type it out again.

Once again, it's an argument of scale, and it IS fuzzy.

I will admit that making a digital copy of anything SEEMS wrong . . . but I argue only because it's against the law . . . laws which were created for the benefit of profit, not morality.

 

[SteveC]

You want a medal for having lost a friend to murder? Get me two while you're at it. The point remains the same: just because things can't be prevented doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

No medals, thank you, just a little less hyperbole and a little understanding. I'm sorry that you've lost friends to murder, and I'm even sadder to hear that having that happen to you twice does not make you realize that using hyperbole in this manner does not strengthen your argument, and simply upsets people.

I'll believe that when I see a society that is free of murder.

There are many societies that are as near to being free of murder as any society made up of human beings can be. Once again, this is a political argument, and has no place on ENWorld.

Why would they put everyone in the company on it? Why would game designers be put on a piracy prevention taskforce?

They wouldn't. They'd hire people who do this kind of thing for a living. Just like I don't go and try to prevent the piracy of my company's computer games, but we do have lawyers that do that kind of thing.

...and those people manage to accomplish what, exactly? I don't know which company you work for, but I would find it extremely likely that torrents of all of their products exist despite your lawyers best efforts. If you work for any major software house, you're also in a position to have one or more orders of magnitude more resources available to you than WotC does.

It's a waste to you. Working for a company that rigorously protects it's IP, I can tell you that it is money well spent in many cases.

Stopping software piracy is not synonymous with defending your IP. It is part of a much larger whole that is extremely important, but it is not the same thing. Again, I seriously doubt that your company has managed to stop their products from being made available on the Internet. If they have, they should consider talking to the RIAA about it, since they could teach them something about it.

The number one problem with trying to solve problems with our society? This exact attitude.

I am not going to get into a debate on my efforts to solve society's problems, but I will put my works to advance the public good up against anyone, anytime. I am simply stating that the money that WotC puts into this practice could be far better spent on initiatives like the DDI. If the DDI does what they hope it will, piracy of books will not be a major concern for them at all, because they will have turned the game into a service that they control, and one that can't be pirated.

--Steve

 

[Oompa]

Well, downloading here isnt illegal.. but i think people who download are doubting if they would like 4th edition, and i hope who download 4th, will also by the books..

 

[Cirex]

Well, one problem with quoting anyone in academia is youll find just as many desenters. but despite anything they might say about such nonsense, the basic fact is this. If a company also sells pdfs of their products, and wotc does, i believe, than the fact the those illegal pdfs are out there means that they were not paid for, resulting in a loss. This is ridiculously simple, if a company charges x bucks for a pdf, then y amount of people dont pay for it...Guess what!!! That means X times y is the amount of money that the company should have gotten but dosent. Simple math seems very simple indeed.

Sorry, that's not a fact. It's not even close to a true statement. It's a point so easy to take down that if I download the same copy 500 times, according to you, I have caused the loss of 500 potentially sold books.

That's false.

I will use the example I used above. If anyone, right now, downloads 30, 50, 200 D&D books, are they causing an economical harm to WotC? Nope, because that person wouldn't have bought those 30, 50 or 200 books anyways.

I know it's a hard concept, but it's the truth. If I grab any random hard drive, out of anyone, mine, my brother, my friends, a lawyer, a teacher, a member of the Senate, a Government worker, I will find an amount of downloaded stuff, be it 1gb, be it 1 tb. The amount of money that would have been spent on that stuff if the download was not available would be close to zero.

 

[Rykion]

I look forward to playing, and owning the physical books I've purchased, but don't tell me that it's wrong to get information (knowledge) that wasn't paid for. That is a dangerous idea and always has been.

We live in an information age. Many people's livelihoods are completely based on being paid to create and/or spread information. This group includes teachers, authors, artists, musicians, doctors, accountants, programmers, analysts, and other specialists. Obviously, they shouldn't be paid because knowledge should be free.

 

[Family]

But this could be the flashpoint! PirateCat HIMSELF was recently heard saying...and I quote: "My tolerance for people defending piracy? Zero."

My theory? NinjaCat! Now just hear me out, I know it sounds "silly" but what better way to hide a Ninja but as a Pirate It all fits I tell ya...all of it. Now if you'll excuse me I have a tinfoil hat to make.


-Book: "I brought you some supper but if you'd prefer a lecture, I've a few very catchy ones prepped...sin and hellfire... one has lepers."