Update: Malhavoc PDFs no longer available at RPGnow (merged)

[Sir Whiskers]

Part of the problem, as I see it, is that print publishers (again, generalizing here) want someone else to take care of the copyright/piracy issues before they jump in.

This actually makes a lot of sense to me. Most companies I've dealt with, when branching into a new (to them) technology, turn to a vendor who is assumed to have the proper expertise. All too often the company learns the hard way that the vendor in question wasn't the best choice, but that's part of the learning curve. If Patrick is right about this, then maybe there's hope they'll change (sooner or later).

Of course, since this still doesn't address the companies who do have prior experience selling pdf's, it's not a complete explanation.

 

[Creeping Death]

I'm not worried. Like you've all said, it only inconveniences honest people. I'm not honest. I'm just going to crack it and use it. I do feel bad for those with morals, though.



--to the point DM Magic

That wouldn't be me either. Back in college, I got a C in "Ethics and Values". So I guess I don't have morals.

I hate DRM with a passion, I will not use or buy a product from a publisher that is DRM enabled.

 

[C. Baize]

Bottom lines?

Everyone has their own bottom line.
For the publishers, the bottom line is all about the Benjamins.
Ostensibly, it's about people using their product, because more users equals more money. Realistically, however, they really don't care whether or not you USE their product, just that you BUY their product.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and speak for the average gamer (I think I qualify... I've been gaming for over 25 years, I've seen the average gamer... in the mirror. ).
The bottom line for me (and I suspect for many... possibly even most gamers) can be summed up thusly: how useful is the product to ME?

Print and PDF products normally have the same usefulness to me, if the content is there. Restricting, however, the portability of the product restricts its usefulness to me. You see, game nights are not always at the C. Baize house... Sometimes they're at the Lichkicker house... sometimes they're at the Athen Windwalker house, sometimes they're somewhere else, entirely...
With most PDFs, I can take them with me on a CD and read them on the computer at the house where the game is being held.
I can take my books with me, wherever I go, as well.
With this new lockdown thing that Malhavoc and other DTRPG only companys are actively embracing, it severely limits the usefulness of future Malhavoc (and other DTRPG only companys, obviously) product, until it hits print. This means I'm not likely to purchase future Malhavoc PDFs... if I don't purchase the PDFs, I won't know about them (my FLGS doesn't carry Malhavoc product), therefor, I won't order the print versions when they come out. Bottom line is that Malhavoc, therefor, loses potentially two sales of the same product to me (and likely to others as well). I haven't purchased EVERY Malhavoc PDF, but I have purchased several, and would likely have purchased several more in the future. But I won't, as long as they have the restricted usefulness. This isn't to say that I'll never purchase another Malhavoc product, but it is to say that I'll not purchase locked down PDFs... I did, once, and was completely unhappy with the lack of usefulness of the product. I'll not do it, again.
I don't require all the players to have copies of the books. They can borrow mine (in which case I do without them for the week), or I can pass them across the table to them while at their house. By the same token, they can use the parts of the PDFs I bring on CD, while I'm at their house (though I don't leave the CDs there).
Another point about PDF convenience. If I have a computer crash, and my CD backup is destroyed, for whatever reason, I can get a new download from RPGNow... apparently I can't do the same from DriveThruRPG, again limiting the usefulness of their product.
This brings to mind another question... For those companies who have moved to DTRPG... If I should lose my copy of a previously purchased product, have I now LOST the recourse I had of re-downloading (at no extra charge) the product I already purchased? Must I now RE-purchase the product?
You claim to not be taking anything away... well... There's one thing.

I wish you and DTRPG well with future sales, though my Benjamins will not be flowing your direction.

I may only be pennies to you... but pennies add up after a while.

 

[RCanning]

Just found a more detailed and end user friendly version of the Adobe eBook and DRM FAQ.

http://www.adobe.com/products/ebookreader/pdfs/faq.pdf

Just in case people want to read it. It also specifically states that only ONE (1) PC or Mac can be logged in to view a DRM protected file.

Some of the confusion could be caused by some people using MSN IDs and some using Adobe IDs. I chose to go with Adobe because of the rumbles that MSN might start charging for their IDs (or expiring them if you don't pay within a certain time of creating them); still it should not matter which way I choose to go, it should be the way promised by the seller.

Richard Canning

 

[Psion]

Here's my catch-phrase for our 2005 plans: "Adventure-in-a-box!"

And in those few words, Psion's faith in "the boys at Fiery" was restored.

Hope to see ya all at GenCon!

 

[dcollins]

Forcing DRM down people’s throats?!
Hey, we aren’t. If you don’t want it, don’t buy it.

Yes, that is one possible response.

For those who are looking for other possible responses I might recommend the following:

(1) Talk to your friends and family. Make sure they understand the kinds of common usages and forward-compatibility that DRM materials will take away from them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management

(2) Write your legislator to repeal the DMCA. That's the 1998 Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which makes it illegal to remove encryption on products you have bought. http://anti-dmca.org/

(3) Make a donation to the EFF. That's the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is dedicated to the defending the liberties of technology users (which is of course all of us now). http://www.eff.org/

I've done all three in the past.

 

[Cyanide]

I could comment on all the I hate DRM/we're stuck with DRM arguing, but why bother? It's pretty much all been said. Something did just occurred to me, though. Wouldn't it be cool if RPGnow bought drive-thru at some point in the future, because their sales just weren't enough? Is that possible/likely? I think that would be delicious irony...

 

[Heretic Apostate]

I piss and moan about the troubles I have with PDFs and iTunes and other electronic media. But so far, I'm (more or less) an honest customer.

I like PDFs. Back in the day, I had twenty-eight boxes of RPG material, quite a bit bought at out-of-print prices. Stuff I would only read occasionally, especially since I'd have to shift around a dozen boxes to find the box that had the item I wanted.

So, when I found out that svgames and rpgnow had the old TSR/WOTC out-of-print stuff, I was thrilled. I could replace my collection with a few megs of PDFs. And in the process, I bought about 200 out-of-print PDFs (and downloaded another 30 or so free from WOTC).

When someone on EN World wanted the freebies from WOTC, but had a dialup connection, I burned them a CD of all the freebies. I even added in freebies from other places. But not one purchased PDF made it onto that CD.

I've been tempted many times to go on a P2P to download a PDF of a print book. But I've resisted, so far. I bought the book, though I'd rather had the PDF (less shelf space, and less strain on my back from digging through boxes ). But given my history with computer crashes (thankfully, I no longer have WinME... literally a dozen reformats in one weekend, and that happened more than once), I'm leery of anything that doesn't allow portability and archiving.

So, I'll probably wait. If this experiment continues, I'll search for cracked PDFs, see if I like them, and think about joining the ranks of the frequent-pirates.

 

[Prime_Evil]

A quick update: Steve Jackson Games have just announced that their forthcoming online e-23 online store will NOT use DRM. Here's the relevant passage from the announcement on their website:

"Will the PDFs you sell be user-limited with some sort of digital rights management scheme? No, they won't. We understand this is a hot issue right now because another company just opened a PDF store with encoded, "protected" PDFs that won't even work on some computers. We looked into that whole issue, and decided that copy protection would create far more trouble for our users than it would save for us. The l33t g00bs will break it anyway, and it annoys the honest people."

Perhaps it is worth remembering that the business premises of Steve Jackson Games were raided by the Secret Service a few years back to seize the manuscript for GURPS: Cyberpunk on the grounds that it glorified and encouraged computer hacking.....

 

[Yair]

It could be a clever tactic. Put DRM up, let people bitch about it for a couple of weeks, everyone has our site on the tip of their tongue, and when they remove it everyone spends money. Hey, it would be clever.

Richard Canning

I am struck with thoughts of St. Monte, patron saint of pdf publishing, sacrificing his own sales in a machiavelian ploy by convincing print companies a new kind of format would work, only to denounce it later and thus lead them into the one true path [non-crippled pdf publishing].
If only...