Will you be purchasing PDFs from DriveThruRPG?

[BronzeDragonPitt]

The above questions leave aside the other major issue, which is that I'm being sold a product with crippled features becasuse someone else is dishonest. This isn't a business model designed to make your customers feel valued.

First, let me say I do not mean to single out Buttercup, but her's was simply the most recent post on this subject. So please Buttercup, do not take this as personal.

Well, I don't think that my opinion is all that weighty, but I don't think that's a very good arguement. Do you not go to grocery stores that have security cameras? Do you not buy CDs or DVDs at Wal-Mart (or whomever your local department store is) because they put security tags on them? Do you not take out books from librarys who put security tags on their books to prevent theft? Face the real world folks. Your so-called "rights" end when it starts to damage the folks producing the thing. Some people steal things, and it is foolish to say that the people producing those things shouldn't try to prevent that theft.

And unless you can't register more than 6 computers, it's not really that much of a hassle. I downloaded Gamma World d20 at work, burned it to a CD, and then took it to a student lab to print, and the DRM process took all of 45 seconds. Sorry, I don't get what the fuss is about.

And for the Linux users crying about how it doesn't work on their machines. Hey, doo-doo happens. I'd dearly love to MechAssault, but it's an Xbox game and I don't own an Xbox. So, I can't play. That's life. Life isn't fair. If life was fair, then all the bad things that happen to us are deserved, and wouldn't that just be so much more depressing?

Cordially,

Eric
Pittsburgh

 

[drothgery]

Numerous people have made it clear that being opposed to the current incarnation of Adobe DRM in no way infers any objection to copyright protection.

To the contrary, I am confident that most people who voted NO feel as I do that copyright protection is very important.
But we still will not buy crippled product, even moreso when the defense of IP provided is an illusion.

In my experience, people who care about IP protection are at best a significant minority (though overrepresented in some online communities; the kind of people who post here usually care about IP, but someone's uploading gaming books to Kazaa, and more than a few people are downloading them -- and not just to do the digital equivalent of flipping through the book in the store). Casual copyright violations are considered even less of a crime by most people than speeding or underage drinking by college kids -- and that's in the US, where pro-IP protection attitudes are probably the strongest.

I don't see how, given most people's views on copyright violations, producing IP can stay profitable in the face of every-cheaper bandwidth and storage without some sort of DRM. I wish this weren't the case, but I don't think it is.

 

[Tsyr]

Well, I don't think that my opinion is all that weighty, but I don't think that's a very good arguement. Do you not go to grocery stores that have security cameras? Do you not buy CDs or DVDs at Wal-Mart (or whomever your local department store is) because they put security tags on them? Do you not take out books from librarys who put security tags on their books to prevent theft? Face the real world folks. Your so-called "rights" end when it starts to damage the folks producing the thing. Some people steal things, and it is foolish to say that the people producing those things shouldn't try to prevent that theft.

As has been pointed out a bajillion times so far, these are very, very poor analogies. The camera doesn't follow you when you go home. You don't have to submit to a background check to buy a tomato. Your rights to drink that can of coke can't be revoked. Nobody is telling you what you can and can't do with that stick of celery. That tagged book from the library wont lock shut if I read it outside of my 'designated area'. Besides, "library" is a poor analogy, unless you want to support the concept that we don't own the product we are buying. Lets try that with a bookstore, shall we?

A bookstore won't tell you in 6 months that you need to buy a new copy of the book because they updated their security system.

"Face the real world", indeed. One of the many crys to attempt to belittle people whos opinion you disagree with, that we are somehow not living in the 'real world'.

My "so called rights" are quite real, in fact. Right of First Sale, for example, as others have pointed out.

And unless you can't register more than 6 computers, it's not really that much of a hassle. I downloaded Gamma World d20 at work, burned it to a CD, and then took it to a student lab to print, and the DRM process took all of 45 seconds. Sorry, I don't get what the fuss is about.

Unless your one of the people who it doesn't seem to work at all for, even when the directions are followed. Unless your one of the people who have computers they need to use it on that don't connect to the internet.

And don't count your computers before you use them, to paraphrase an old saying... The official adobe line is 1 computer, ever. DTRPG claims 6. Neither acknowledge that there is any way to de-register a machine. So if we asume the most generous claim thus far, 6, that' still only six installs.

And for the Linux users crying about how it doesn't work on their machines. Hey, doo-doo happens. I'd dearly love to MechAssault, but it's an Xbox game and I don't own an Xbox. So, I can't play. That's life. Life isn't fair. If life was fair, then all the bad things that happen to us are deserved, and wouldn't that just be so much more depressing?

Oh yes. The other favored claim to diminish someone's opinions: Life isn't fair, suck it up, and get over it.

Life isn't fair. You're quite right.

Would you be so willing to brush off our complaints with that statement if Acrobat 7 (The next version needed to run all NEW DRM files) was ONLY for Linux, thus leaving out your precious windows/mac?

Of course. Life isn't fair, right?

It's alot easier to say that when you aren't the one being given the proverbial finger.

The "I don't own an X-Box" thing isn't valid really as an analogy anyhow. For several reasons.

1) .pdf. Portable Document Format. It's supposed to be useable on all platforms. In point of fact, it is, in it's natural state. DRM is a tacked-on addition that prevents it from being useable as such.

2) Prior instances of the same thing DID work. This would be like, say, Fox saying "We have recalled all DVDs. Future DVDs will work only on Sony brand DVD players, and only if purchased in the last six months." Don't think some people might complain about that?

3) Imposed artificial limitation. There is no REASON these documents won't work in Linux. In point of fact, they will, if you strip the DRM encryption off. Its akin to, say... Making a new DVD format that uses a disc with an added-on extra inch of material, that does nothing, existing for the sole reason to prevent DVDs made in such a way as to prevent them from playing in non-sony DVD players. Without the added junk that does nothing, they would still work in normal players. In other words, it has been engineered in such a way as to force compliance with a newly imposed standard, when no technical reason for doing so exists.

 

[Tsyr]

The thing is though, Dave, is that most of the stuff on the p2p networks is actually NOT PDFs from places like RPGNow. It's largely print stuff scanned in, sometimes OCRed to boot.

DRM isn't going to stop this.

 

[Dimwhit]

(2) The other machine I have (my laptop) already has Acrobat 5 (full version) installed, for making PDFs. It can't coexist with the Acrobat 6 reader, and I ain't gonna shell out for the full version of Acrobat 6 just to read DRM PDFs.

Actually, it can. At least it does just fine on my two Macs. Adobe SAYS they don't coexist, but I haven't had any problems.

I realize it's just one of several reasons for you, but I've heard others mention this to, and Adobe is hanking our chains on it. I put it on my machines, but I just didn't set it as the default pdf readers, so right now I only use it for DRM products, or when I specifically want it.

 

[johnsemlak]

As has been pointed out a bajillion times so far, these are very, very poor analogies. The camera doesn't follow you when you go home. You don't have to submit to a background check to buy a tomato. Your rights to drink that can of coke can't be revoked. Nobody is telling you what you can and can't do with that stick of celery. That tagged book from the library wont lock shut if I read it outside of my 'designated area'. Besides, "library" is a poor analogy, unless you want to support the concept that we don't own the product we are buying. Lets try that with a bookstore, shall we?

A bookstore won't tell you in 6 months that you need to buy a new copy of the book because they updated their security system.

"Face the real world", indeed. One of the many crys to attempt to belittle people whos opinion you disagree with, that we are somehow not living in the 'real world'.

A little less virtriol, to use a term used elsewhere, might make some of the middle-of-the road people more sympathetic.

Everything you posted there may be valid, but sometimes two people look at the same things and just see things differently.

I just don't find all that security stuff about DRM to be a big deal. Maybe it's unnecessary. It has a limited material effect on me, so I don't fuss about it.

 

[johnsemlak]

Would you be so willing to brush off our complaints with that statement if Acrobat 7 (The next version needed to run all NEW DRM files) was ONLY for Linux, thus leaving out your precious windows/mac?

Now that is a bad analogy. Linex isn't used by the vast majority of PC users out there. Not too many busiensses would make Linex-only products.

 

[Buttercup]

First, let me say I do not mean to single out Buttercup, but her's was simply the most recent post on this subject. So please Buttercup, do not take this as personal.

No worries. I won't bother to say more than that, because Tsyr already answered you in the way I would have, only he did a better job of it.

 

[BryonD]

In my experience, people who care about IP protection are at best a significant minority (though overrepresented in some online communities; the kind of people who post here usually care about IP, but someone's uploading gaming books to Kazaa, and more than a few people are downloading them -- and not just to do the digital equivalent of flipping through the book in the store). Casual copyright violations are considered even less of a crime by most people than speeding or underage drinking by college kids -- and that's in the US, where pro-IP protection attitudes are probably the strongest.

I don't see how, given most people's views on copyright violations, producing IP can stay profitable in the face of every-cheaper bandwidth and storage without some sort of DRM. I wish this weren't the case, but I don't think it is.

You are correct.

But it just isn't relevant to the matter at hand.

DRM doesn't stop piracy.
And the people in this discussion have listed numerous objections to Adobe DRM which involve limitations on legitimate use.

 

[johnsemlak]

DRM doesn't stop piracy.
And the people in this discussion have listed numerous objections to Adobe DRM which involve limitations on legitimate use.

I've seen a lot of people post that. Does anyone have hard data to support that?

I imagine there isn't any hard data to support either side.