WotC Official PDF versions - would you buy them?
- Thread starter jeffhartsell
- Start date
Silverblade The Ench
First Post
Digital piracy and copyright is a joke, whether business wants to bury it's head in the sand or not.
You cannot "own" electrons or photons, it's impossible. Thus, you cannot, not EVER control it. Someone will always crack, hack open, edit, file, stamp, index, brief, debrief, or number it!
"You are Number 6!"
I'm not advocating piracy, I'm just stating common sense. 19th century property laws cannot work for 21st century digital content.
I know rat bags can steal my artwork, tough, it's just not worth the hassle of trying to prevent, as all you'll do is waste your time and harass legitimate viewers.
Like sites who prevent right clicks, oh that's lame! Easy to bypass and angers legit users who want to copy & paste links...which ruins a prime feature of Web use! It does no good at all.
Appealling to users to behave responsibly, in return for being honest/friendly with them is your best hope (and legal work for excessive scumbags)
So, yes, selling pdfs cheaply IS the best way to tackle this problem, unlike the RIAA idiots who've angered their own consumers and are going down with a sinking ship, madly knocking yet more holes in it's hull :/ Record industry shows how NOT to do it, took them far too long to jump back over their own shark
Me, I'd much rather buy a legit copy of old stuff I like from Ebay, than get a pdf, because the old stuff is what's usually offered on pdf at reasonable prices, and I LOVE the feel and handling the objects with the gorgeous old artwork. Compare the very 1st Realms boxed set, wow, beautiful work, to the trashy 3rd?? boxed set, the last 2nd edition one, ugh! That last boxed set felt cheap in design.
PDfs are best served for rules (crunch), you currenlty use, where as I adore old stuff for fluff, and fluff requires reading and absorption which is best done by...printed page.
PDFs are great for being put onto a laptop for fast, light weight refeernce at game table or when writing an adventure, or DM encounter table work. I hate carrying heavy books, cna't do it no more.
But WOTC don't offer current stuff on pdfs, cheap!!, so only digital product I use is E-tools, which I bought cause making NPCs in 3.5 ed is a nightmare for this poor old DM. Currently digital D&D is pointless to me in terms of the 3.5 stuff: I cannot buy 3.5 ed pdfs for no more than half the price of books, so I refuse to buy it, and I dont use pirate stuff (for a lot of reasons).
-And why no pdfs on sale for 3.5 ed? (just checked, thought there were going to sell 'em ages ago? *does a double take*) If it's to "stop piracy", uh...that boat left the harbour!! jsut searching for pdfs showed gazillions of torrents, but no legit shops selling them...that's capitulation and allows piracy free reign. WOTC doesn't benefit at all.
Instead of a "bunker mentality" that will get you jsu tnowhere on such issues, much better to out do the pirates! or at least make some profit form something you cannot stop, short of setting off a EMP nuke and wiping half of Russia/Asias pirates, lol.
I'm happy to support D&D by buying its products, but not when are expected to pay same price as a book, a soild object, or cannot get stuff you want.
Companies need to learn that customers will support them, if they are treated with respect, and not expected to pay the same price for digital info, that's dirt cheap to distribute, versus heavy physical objects.
Setting up a web store is not cheap, but hey, the profits vs cost are a LOT better than normal book distribution. Books are mopre fun, pdfs are not much fun and are more for utility.
a PHB is a work of art, a pdf is a...tool.
Personally I think the DDI subscription should have a $5/month extra feature if you want it: free use of ALL current D&D pdfs. Think how many folk would sign up for that...I would
You cannot "own" electrons or photons, it's impossible. Thus, you cannot, not EVER control it. Someone will always crack, hack open, edit, file, stamp, index, brief, debrief, or number it!
"You are Number 6!"
I'm not advocating piracy, I'm just stating common sense. 19th century property laws cannot work for 21st century digital content.
I know rat bags can steal my artwork, tough, it's just not worth the hassle of trying to prevent, as all you'll do is waste your time and harass legitimate viewers.
Like sites who prevent right clicks, oh that's lame! Easy to bypass and angers legit users who want to copy & paste links...which ruins a prime feature of Web use! It does no good at all.
Appealling to users to behave responsibly, in return for being honest/friendly with them is your best hope (and legal work for excessive scumbags)
So, yes, selling pdfs cheaply IS the best way to tackle this problem, unlike the RIAA idiots who've angered their own consumers and are going down with a sinking ship, madly knocking yet more holes in it's hull :/ Record industry shows how NOT to do it, took them far too long to jump back over their own shark
Me, I'd much rather buy a legit copy of old stuff I like from Ebay, than get a pdf, because the old stuff is what's usually offered on pdf at reasonable prices, and I LOVE the feel and handling the objects with the gorgeous old artwork. Compare the very 1st Realms boxed set, wow, beautiful work, to the trashy 3rd?? boxed set, the last 2nd edition one, ugh! That last boxed set felt cheap in design.
PDfs are best served for rules (crunch), you currenlty use, where as I adore old stuff for fluff, and fluff requires reading and absorption which is best done by...printed page.
PDFs are great for being put onto a laptop for fast, light weight refeernce at game table or when writing an adventure, or DM encounter table work. I hate carrying heavy books, cna't do it no more.
But WOTC don't offer current stuff on pdfs, cheap!!, so only digital product I use is E-tools, which I bought cause making NPCs in 3.5 ed is a nightmare for this poor old DM. Currently digital D&D is pointless to me in terms of the 3.5 stuff: I cannot buy 3.5 ed pdfs for no more than half the price of books, so I refuse to buy it, and I dont use pirate stuff (for a lot of reasons).
-And why no pdfs on sale for 3.5 ed? (just checked, thought there were going to sell 'em ages ago? *does a double take*) If it's to "stop piracy", uh...that boat left the harbour!! jsut searching for pdfs showed gazillions of torrents, but no legit shops selling them...that's capitulation and allows piracy free reign. WOTC doesn't benefit at all.
Instead of a "bunker mentality" that will get you jsu tnowhere on such issues, much better to out do the pirates! or at least make some profit form something you cannot stop, short of setting off a EMP nuke and wiping half of Russia/Asias pirates, lol.
I'm happy to support D&D by buying its products, but not when are expected to pay same price as a book, a soild object, or cannot get stuff you want.
Companies need to learn that customers will support them, if they are treated with respect, and not expected to pay the same price for digital info, that's dirt cheap to distribute, versus heavy physical objects.
Setting up a web store is not cheap, but hey, the profits vs cost are a LOT better than normal book distribution. Books are mopre fun, pdfs are not much fun and are more for utility.
a PHB is a work of art, a pdf is a...tool.
Personally I think the DDI subscription should have a $5/month extra feature if you want it: free use of ALL current D&D pdfs. Think how many folk would sign up for that...I would
Last edited:
It depends on when. If WotC offered PDF releases June 6th, I'd very likely pay as much as the hardcover books. If they wait for even a month, I probably wouldn't pay. Why? Because I "need" portability. I lug around a laptop and do prep various places as time permits. Since I "need" this, I will end up scanning the hardcovers if I can't save myself the trouble. Once I've gone and made the effort to make my books portable for me, I see no reason in rewarding WotC for wasting my time.
View this as ripping a CD onto your iPod. It's media-shifting. End of story.
View this as ripping a CD onto your iPod. It's media-shifting. End of story.
Lord Mhoram
Hero
I'm a hardcopy kind of guy. I'd buy PDFs at max of 10 bucks. I may not get hard copies of splats and the Players guides from the settings, so I might go as high as 15 for those.
jeffhartsell
First Post
Anguish said:
But copyrights say we are not allowed to copy in whole, or part, someone else's work. Making an archive "copy" of a VHS, CD, DVD, or book is techincally illegal, it is just not worth the time to police it. The music industry frowned on copying music when it was first techically possible for the masses (mixed tapes), but it became so pervasive that they had to deal with it.
Eventually book authors are going to have to adjust to a digital medium.
Jack Colby
First Post
5 dollars or less. But most likely I wouldn't but them at all.
Terramotus
First Post
It's late, and I'm too tired to find hard numbers from a reputable source right now, but I'm pretty sure that profits are dramatically down from where they were 5 or 10 years ago. Digital music sales are certainly up by quite a bit, but they haven't stopped the bleeding from the lack of CD sales.jeffhartsell said:
Slightly incorrect, according to my understanding. IANAL, but my understanding is that analog backups for personal use are explicitly allowed in the United States through the Audio Home Recording Act. Furthermore, the decision in RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia implied that the same may be true for digital recordings. I don't believe this has ever been put to the test, so this issue is hardly decided. The copyright cartels would desperately like you to think that it's illegal, though, so that they can officially make it so.jeffhartsell said:
Indeed. Hopefully without the legal thuggery the RIAA has resorted to. I think a digital copy for free, downloadable through a scratch-off code inside a physical copy is a great idea, with only watermarks as protection. However, for a watermarking scheme to work, there has to be consequences for the individuals who do share. That's the tough part. Do we have microlawsuits to go along with our micropayments because you gave your copy to a dozen friends?jeffhartsell said:
Kobu
First Post
Evenglare said:
That's the last I had heard too and I only learned otherwise here. It's pretty ridiculous that they gave this up. I like to keep open various PDFs on my laptop for quick reference. It's better than juggling a dozen books with bookmarks. I would have paid a few bucks for each of the books I plan on buying.
Not having official versions available is just going to make a lot of people opt for completely free PDFs. WotC's loss I guess.
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