WotC is going ebook at DrivethruRPG...

[Thanee]

I'm still in love with my hardcover books, though, but I could see a time when I no longer thought such was a good thing.

I can see the advantages of .pdf, but not with these conditions.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Li Shenron]

I don't understand very much the usability of PDFs. They are very easy to put on a disc or laptop, but I could never read a PDF from start to end like I can read a book, therefore the only use I'd have from a PDF would be for a quick look-up of a rule while in the middle of a game, and only if I was away from my books (which is rarely the case, since typically the game is played at the DM's house). And even for this use, a PDF is terrible, it doesn't take much less time that looking up between the pages of a book; the winner format for rule reference is IMHO some HTML or similar with lots of links!

That said, why should I buy a PDF? Unless I was in a very special situation, such as having to DM far away from home on a regular basis, the only use of a PDF would be... to print it out, which isn't probably allowed by the DRM, and which costs too much considering how bad a printed PDF looks like compared to the book.

To tell the truth, I wouldn't probably buy the PDF even if it costed a couple of $, because I simply had no use for it Well, I could spend a $ just to get a preview of a book, but I can have it for free at the FLGS as well.

That applies to every single form of copy protection ever made. Period. Dongles? Real users lose them, pirates bypass them. CD has to be in drive? Real users lose them, or even if they don't it's still a PITA, pirates bypass it. Copy protection? Real users disc gets destroyed and their back up is non-functional. Pirates (you guessed it) bypass it.

It's possible that copy protections aren't meant for pirates. They're meant to discourage non-pirates from becoming pirates?

 

[Thanee]

Some people even find Activating Adobe DRM to much work, all i have to say to these people, go look at jerry springer because obviously doing something isn't in your vocabulary, a computer isn't meant for your little brain.

DRM is just annoying, and pointless. What good does it do? Stop piracy? Yeah, right!

Bye
Thanee

 

[jgbrowning]

I'm glad to see WoTC going PDF. Obviously they realize that there is a market there. Now I just wish they would really try and please the market, as opposed to trying to please their other markets-Both customer and retailer aspects.

But it is monumentious. RPGs are now going digital.

joe b.

 

[Cergorach]

I look forward to a DRM world where I can purchase any media I want and consume it instantaneously. Hell, DRM (properly implemented) has already allowed me to rent movies without ever leaving my computer, and begin watching in 30 seconds. That's a benefit that just isn't available without DRM.

That would work without DRM as well, as a matter of fact, that works now, just not within 30 seconds.

You know what annoys me immensly with DVDs? All the stuff that i have to watch before i can watch the movie, i can't fastforward or move directly to the film, because a big company decided that they want me to see that. That is the power DRM gives the companies that make the DVDs/movies. Imagine that you bought a... bible and the church decided what you should read, or that you should read/watch the 10 minute intro everytime you read the bible...

DRM gives companies that produce content more power over how that content is watched/consumed, more then they should have a right to. Maybe some companies don't exploit their 'powers', but others do, and management and policies can change like the wind. I prefer not to depend on other people's 'decisions', because i know that in the end, there's always bound to be an idiot that screws it up if left unchecked. You don't let children play with fire or with guns, you also don't let companies play with DRM...

 

[reanjr]

DRM is just annoying, and pointless. What good does it do? Stop piracy? Yeah, right!

Bye
Thanee

To my knowledge Microsoft DRM is currently still unbreakable in a general. I don't know about Adobe's. The future implementations of DRM are even unbreakable in theory (in a general implementation sort of way; one can always break it by brute forcing for a single file). There are ways to get around it for a single machine, but the file is not distributable. There are other ways to get lossy copies of audio. There are still other ways to unlock a file temporarily until MS updates the keys. None of these exploits really breaks the DRM. You can always scan a book yourself to distribute the material. That is not what DRM is trying to stop. DRM has immediate and dramatic results on cutting down on piracy.

A cursory search on Kazaa led me to two Malhavoc products available for download. It led me to none of the Wizards products currently available from DTRPG. Given that Wizards obviously is going to have a much bigger market share, this is quite telling.

 

[reanjr]

That would work without DRM as well, as a matter of fact, that works now, just not within 30 seconds.

Where are these websites that legally rent out DivX files of the latest movies that are not DRM? This type of service has never been and probably never will be available. DRM makes it possible.

You know what annoys me immensly with DVDs? All the stuff that i have to watch before i can watch the movie, i can't fastforward or move directly to the film, because a big company decided that they want me to see that. That is the power DRM gives the companies that make the DVDs/movies. Imagine that you bought a... bible and the church decided what you should read, or that you should read/watch the 10 minute intro everytime you read the bible...

There is no one forcing you to purchase that DVD. Media in the the latter half of the 20th century has been in licensed form in some way or another. I personally do not find a 10 second FBI warning to be a real inconvenience. If you do, then don't watch DVDs. Use VHS. Speak with your dollars.

DRM gives companies that produce content more power over how that content is watched/consumed, more then they should have a right to. Maybe some companies don't exploit their 'powers', but others do, and management and policies can change like the wind. I prefer not to depend on other people's 'decisions', because i know that in the end, there's always bound to be an idiot that screws it up if left unchecked. You don't let children play with fire or with guns, you also don't let companies play with DRM...

The companies created the content. They should have absolute, totalitarian control over how they allow their content to be consumed. It is theirs. They own it. Not you. It is a privilege they grant you to allow you to consume their content. If you don't agree to the terms, they are fully within their right to deny this privilege. You have absolute, totalitarian control over yourself, and can not be forced to consume their content. You have the ability to deny them your money.

 

[Cergorach]

DRM is just annoying, and pointless. What good does it do? Stop piracy? Yeah, right!

Of course it doesn't stop piracy, it's just that most folks don't truly believe that, they say they believe it, but after a few hours fiddeling can't 'crack' it, they stop believing.

That's very good for us, because if people really didn't believe that it stops piracy we wouldn't have WotC selling their brand spanking new books in an original electronic format, now would we...

I don't understand very much the usability of PDFs. They are very easy to put on a disc or laptop, but I could never read a PDF from start to end like I can read a book, therefore the only use I'd have from a PDF would be for a quick look-up of a rule while in the middle of a game, and only if I was away from my books (which is rarely the case, since typically the game is played at the DM's house). And even for this use, a PDF is terrible, it doesn't take much less time that looking up between the pages of a book; the winner format for rule reference is IMHO some HTML or similar with lots of links!

Pdfs are good for folks like me that want to have their books with them when they are at locations that don't have my D&D books lying around. I also like the fact that i have a good copy of the books i enjoyed now in 50 years when the hardcover is comming apart.

I also have all the Forgotten Realms 2nd Edition books (those where much more afordable) in pdf, i also made one huge searchable index file (using an adobe tool), that has come in reall handy when preparing for a sesion as a dm, i can input a search term, it shows me a list where those terms show up and it directly links me to the pdf page that has that term. I almost have all the FR 2nd edition books as well (exept gems like Karatur), those are good when i need to read more then a couple of pages on screen.

For the last couple of months i've been reading 10.000+ pages worth novels on my pda, i use µBook as my reader (great free reader, the best imho). It accepts zipped (making the files much smaller) txt, rtf, html (and more), but i am using html and so far and it's great! I'm actually giving away a pile of my novels and i intend to trade away the rest. It's now only electronic novels from now on (baen.com actually supplies them as zipped html). I am now also experimenting with converting my pdfed game books to html, Adobe Acrobat Pro has an option that allows me to save a pdf as a txt, rtf, or html. It still needs some manual removal of some of the html tags (i hate bloated html), but i'm making progress...

ps. Goodman Games is also adding it's catalog to DrivetrhuRPG.

 

[Cergorach]

Where are these websites that legally rent out DivX files of the latest movies that are not DRM? This type of service has never been and probably never will be available. DRM makes it possible.

DRM doesn't make it directly possible, it gives people with limited knowledge the impression that it stops piracy, and because of that impression people allow content to be distributed with DRM and not without it. So it's ignorance and not DRM that allows for the distribution of digital content. Btw, who said anything about legalities, you said it wasn't possible, i said it is, you never mentioned anything about the legal status. So it is technically possible, but companies don't want to, that's something entirely different...

There is no one forcing you to purchase that DVD. Media in the the latter half of the 20th century has been in licensed form in some way or another. I personally do not find a 10 second FBI warning to be a real inconvenience. If you do, then don't watch DVDs. Use VHS. Speak with your dollars.

I don't have dollars, i have euros ;-) But why not buy something i will enjoy? I only have to circumvent the DRM to enjoy it, i put my DVD into my computer, push a couple of buttons, x minutes later i can watch the movie without the annoying DRM. It's not only the 10 sec fbi warning, it's also the 10 sec RIAA warning, the 10 sec publishing company intro, the 10 sec production company intro, the 10 sec THX intro, the 10 sec dolby surround intro, and if your really luck a couple of minutes worth of previews of other movies...

The companies created the content. They should have absolute, totalitarian control over how they allow their content to be consumed. It is theirs. They own it. Not you. It is a privilege they grant you to allow you to consume their content. If you don't agree to the terms, they are fully within their right to deny this privilege. You have absolute, totalitarian control over yourself, and can not be forced to consume their content. You have the ability to deny them your money.

So if i own a farmaceutical company do i also have absolute, totalitarian control over how they allow their content to be consume? I also have absolute, totalitarian control over myself and choose not to play by their rules...

 

[Li Shenron]

Pdfs are good for folks like me that want to have their books with them when they are at locations that don't have my D&D books lying around. I also like the fact that i have a good copy of the books i enjoyed now in 50 years when the hardcover is comming apart.

Weh ok, perhaps I am not too much a "modern" DM

Just curious... are you a player or a DM? Because when I am the DM, we're always playing at my home, where all my books are. I have used a laptop with Sovelior's SRD and it was very useful for checking rules. I think 99% of the times (IMXP) the game takes place at the DM's.
If you are a player instead, well I simply think you should be disallowed to check books during the game