Whats the rules for PDFs?
- Thread starter yeebarr
- Start date
Grazzt
Demon Lord
Re: No...
Right you are. I have dealt with copyright laws/copyrights in the past (not so much with PDFs, but with music, including lyric sheets, printed music, etc.) and printing it out allows it for your use only...just like buying a book or what have you in the store...your personal use only.
Mark Chance said:
Right you are. I have dealt with copyright laws/copyrights in the past (not so much with PDFs, but with music, including lyric sheets, printed music, etc.) and printing it out allows it for your use only...just like buying a book or what have you in the store...your personal use only.
Desdichado
Hero
I used to work at an ILL/Document Delivery service, so while I'm no legal expert, at least I have some experience with this question and how we dealt with it.
Printing multiple copies of the PDF is not illegal. Printing more copies than you need and giving them to everyone you know is certainly unethical, though. It is true that even without copyright notice, all work is considered copyrighted automatically. However, you are perfectly within your legal rights as a buyer of the PDF to print off as many copies as you need for your own use. You have the same rights relative to print material you buy, by the way, although copying an entire book is certainly a daunting and, IMO, silly task anyway.
But, I'd still encourage your players to pick up the PDF themselves. PDFs are ridiculously cheap. In addition, I'd only print out the exact pages they will need, not the entire document. Do a little sales job of your own!
Printing multiple copies of the PDF is not illegal. Printing more copies than you need and giving them to everyone you know is certainly unethical, though. It is true that even without copyright notice, all work is considered copyrighted automatically. However, you are perfectly within your legal rights as a buyer of the PDF to print off as many copies as you need for your own use. You have the same rights relative to print material you buy, by the way, although copying an entire book is certainly a daunting and, IMO, silly task anyway.
But, I'd still encourage your players to pick up the PDF themselves. PDFs are ridiculously cheap. In addition, I'd only print out the exact pages they will need, not the entire document. Do a little sales job of your own!
BigFreekinGoblinoid
First Post
Psychotic Dreamer said:I would imagine it's a matter of you can print out as many copies as you want as long as they are for your use. However if you do print out copies for your friends... well thats a decision you need to make.
I think of purchased .pdf's as a one user license. I can print it as many times as I want, copy it to my laptop -email it to work - whatever. But I cannot share into another persons possession.
Re: No...
Take a closer look at what I said.
I said that if there is no guidance (meaning no copyright information, no limitation on your right to reproduce, no author or publisher information, no contact information, etc) then you are home free with regards to printing and giving away copies.
No reasonable person would expect you to hunt down the original source for an unattributed document that is freely distributed on the internet.
Feel free to disagree, but I don't think you'll find anything to support your position.
(edited to add the following)
Initially I missed the part about him "buying" the document.
I answered the question thinking that he had downloaded it and was wondering what he could do with it.
It never entered my mind that he had just purchased the item and failed to understand that it would have legal protection similar to that of software, movies, or music. Oops.
I wholeheartedly agree that if a document is copyrighted or specifies that there is a limitation placed upon your right to reproduce or distribute a document, that you are obligated to contact and gain permission before you copy or distribute the document in question.
Mark Chance said:
Take a closer look at what I said.
I said that if there is no guidance (meaning no copyright information, no limitation on your right to reproduce, no author or publisher information, no contact information, etc) then you are home free with regards to printing and giving away copies.
No reasonable person would expect you to hunt down the original source for an unattributed document that is freely distributed on the internet.
Feel free to disagree, but I don't think you'll find anything to support your position.
(edited to add the following)
Initially I missed the part about him "buying" the document.
I answered the question thinking that he had downloaded it and was wondering what he could do with it.
It never entered my mind that he had just purchased the item and failed to understand that it would have legal protection similar to that of software, movies, or music. Oops.
I wholeheartedly agree that if a document is copyrighted or specifies that there is a limitation placed upon your right to reproduce or distribute a document, that you are obligated to contact and gain permission before you copy or distribute the document in question.
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Maerdwyn
First Post
The fact that there is no guidance present does not mean you are home free - under US law, copyrights do not have to be defended.
In fact , you don't even need a little statement such as "copyright tburdett 2002" in order to have a document you write protected by copyright law - it's automatic, unless someone specifically and explicitly releases a work into the public domain.
In fact , you don't even need a little statement such as "copyright tburdett 2002" in order to have a document you write protected by copyright law - it's automatic, unless someone specifically and explicitly releases a work into the public domain.
It's easy to say that, but in the real world, there is very little (effectively no) protection for unattributed works. You can print and distribute freely (freely meaning for no profit or cost, no usage or access fee, in other words - totally free) and there will be no sanction against you, legal or otherwise.
Give me just one case that shows a legal sanction against someone freely distributing an unattributed (bearing no copyright or trademark or any other identifying information) document (for no profit or cost, no usage or access fee, in other words - totally free) and I'll happily admit that I'm wrong. I can't find one and I don't think that there is one.
I'm not saying that this is right or ethical, or that this represents what the law may state, or that this is they way that things should be, but it is the way that things are.
"Should" is a fine word, but it rarely accomplishes anything.
Discussions like this never result in anything beyond what we've already reached here. You believe that there is protection for these documents and I believe that, regardless of what the law may state, there really isn't.
Give me just one case that shows a legal sanction against someone freely distributing an unattributed (bearing no copyright or trademark or any other identifying information) document (for no profit or cost, no usage or access fee, in other words - totally free) and I'll happily admit that I'm wrong. I can't find one and I don't think that there is one.
I'm not saying that this is right or ethical, or that this represents what the law may state, or that this is they way that things should be, but it is the way that things are.
"Should" is a fine word, but it rarely accomplishes anything.
Discussions like this never result in anything beyond what we've already reached here. You believe that there is protection for these documents and I believe that, regardless of what the law may state, there really isn't.
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