WotC puts a stop to online sales of PDFs

[chris.crouch]

For your reference:

Before WotC started releasing its own PDFs for sale, pirated copies of books showed up within about a month of release.

About a month before, for the core 3

After WotC started releasing its own PDFs for sale, pirated copies of books showed up within about a month of release.

According to someone earlier in the thread, within a few hours of the release of the book.

I predict that after today, pirate copies of future titles will show up within about a month of release. Those copies will not contain watermarks that can lead to prosecution of the people who pirated them.

They'll be out within days I'd guess, but the quality of the PDF will be poorer. Probably will be a poor scan, and no OCR so no searching.

I'd laugh about this, if it weren't so tragic for people who don't live in places where you can buy WotC books for anything like the North American price. I'm led to believe that a lot of ENWorlders around the world rely on PDFs just because they sell for relatively reasonable prices compared to hard copies.

I'm an Aussie, and I've never been seriously tempted to buy a PDF because even here it's still cheaper to buy a hard copy from Amazon than to buy the PDFs

Chris

 

[jdrakeh]

I have a suggestion.

WotC took their ball and went home. Let them.

For those of us with the means to do so, let's go to RPGNow or the ENWorld PDF store and support the publishers who are selling their PDFs by purchasing some of them.

If you don't want the small press to suffer from this, do something about it. Go spend a little money on something as a way of saying thank you for doing right by the customer.

That's a good suggestion. I'm kind of strapped for cash but I dropped by the Mythmere Games storefront over at Lulu earlier today, as well as the Goodman Games catalog over at RPGNow. I'll probably grab some Judge's Guild stuff tomorrow.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

A guy on WotC forums had his laptop stolen today, he hadn't backed up, so now he has lost his paid for PDFs despite thinking he was backed up on RPGnow when he purchased them.

This is what I don't get.

He paid for the PDF and the backups. This is something he has already paid for. How can WotC take it away?

It's not like this is a physical product. It's an electronic product that he paid for, and that RPGnow was holding for him as a backup. How can WotC keep RPGnow from giving somebody something that he already owns?

 

[Minicol]

I am not surprised in the least that this has happened given their past behavior.

Hopefully, you will all keep your eyes open from now on.

 

[Roman]

Even if the retailers shouldn't have offered a promise they couldn't back up, WotC presumably knew, and didn't really care (and probably had it in the initial contract that they could do this at any time, similar to the language in the GSL).

I agree. Even if WotC had the legal right to pull the contract without notice (and that is not completely clear), it was at the very least indirectly complicit in endorsing the promise of RPGNow by not asking them to change it. If a company makes promises about delivering your products that you know they cannot deliver on, as a responsible large company you ask them to cease and desist so that your own reputation is not damaged by association - this is standard practice for responsible corporations.

Even if the online retailers can be fairly blamed for promising something they couldn't actually control, that doesn't mean WotC gets indemnity for doing a pointless, boneheaded, scaredey-cat tactic like this offering the excuse of "piracy."

Yeah, you can be legitimately angry at the retailers. They shouldn't have promised something they couldn't deliver. But you can ALSO be legitimately angry at WotC, and, in fact, given the reasons for the decision and the ramifications and suddenness of it, and the fact that WotC were the ones who made the decision (with the retailers just abiding by the agreements they can), WotC is certainly to blame, and, in my mind, to blame for a much more massive and idiotic move.

Precisely my thoughts - thanks for saving me the need to type it up! I have given too much rep today already, otherwise you would clearly be a recipient.

 

[Dumnbunny]

Not only does this punish people who purchased their PDFs legally by making such legal channels no longer available, it also does nothing to significantly hinder piracy while also potentially harming other PDF publishers.

I've had this conversation before with clients looking to protect their IP, and this is the most frustrating part. Some manager or executive discovers online piracy and demands that something be done about it, refusing to accept that doing nothing is the best option.

Withdrawing their PDFs from sales won't mean an end to piracy. Their entire catalog was available on file sharing networks before this, and so long as there's people happy to cut the spine off a book and spend a day or two feeding the pages through a scanner (bonus marks for running it through OCR software), the piracy of their books will continue uabated.

The lawsuits are even more baffling, especially considering the disatrous experiences of the RIAA. They sued tens of thousands of people and all they got for their efforts was some very expensive egg on their faces. Suing eight people is a waste of time and money.

Note that this isn't about whether or not Wizards has the legal right to do what they're doing (they do, with the possible exception of those who didn't get a chance to download the books they paid for), or even the ethical right( they do, with the definate exception mentioned above). It's that this is another attempt to assuage the fears of suits who don't understand the issues, and mistakenly insist that doing something is always better than doing nothing.

 

[Friadoc]

Haffrung,

Respectfully, it is RPGnow that owes you a refund.

RPGnow set up the conditions for the purchase, and your expectations (and mine). Their supplier had a change of mind, and RPGnow is unable to fulfill their commitment (5 copies).

If RPGnow didn't have the power to enforce the maintenance of 5 copies for download, they shouldn't have sold them to us.

You're right, in part, Filcher, in that WotC is well within their rights to decide not to sell their products in a e-format like PDF, it's their choice to enter or exit a particular market.

However, as with others, even myself, we're assuming facts not in evidence here, about what OneBookShelf/RPGNow/DriveThru and Wizards of the Coast's business relationship was and what both parties knew and/or agreed to. It is quite arguable, though, that by being aware of the copy download policy for PDFs via OBS' outlets, as well as Paizo, that their consent and acceptance of the policy was implied. Either it was implicitly accepted or else WotC was ignorant of their rights and either didn't know how to defend them or chose not to.

But, at this point, there is more assuming going on than knowing, on both sides of this, and until, if ever, we see the agreement between the two, all we're gonna see is the disagreement and objection over the course of action and regardless of who made the promise, thus who is liable for it, WotC is obviously making an Old Media mistake in a New Media world and is going to suffer for it.

Piracy is still going to happen like it did before WotC allowed PDF copies of their books, even now that they've retreated from PDFs. It ain't gonna stop a thing, except for the loyalty and patronage of some customers. Personally, I'm going with more New Media savvy folk, big and small, like Paizo, Rite Publishing, Wolfgang Baur, and so forth.

It's sad, really, because I've had a lot of positive things to say about 4e and the DDI, even run a 4e game on Sundays, but now I'm just irked. Hopefully WotC will come up with something that fixes things, before it gets a bit worse.

 

[Belgos]

Hmm...

I love playing 4e.

On principle, I only buy the pdf files.


Solutions:
1) Quit 4e
2) Switch to illicit downloads

Well, I guess WotC has lost all future revenue from me regardless.

Drink up me 'earties! Yo Ho!

I 'lol'ed at that one. But then, I have a warped sense of humour.

 

[joethelawyer]

From an article by Chris Hedges on Truthdig...



The corporation is designed to make money without regard to human life, the social good or impact on the environment. Corporate laws impose a legal duty on corporate executives to make as much money as possible for shareholders, although many have moved on to fleece shareholders as well. In the 2003 documentary film “The Corporation” the management guru Peter Drucker says: “If you find an executive who wants to take on social responsibilities, fire him. Fast.”


....




In short, the film, based on [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Corporation-Pathological-Pursuit-Profit-Power/dp/0743247469/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230506220&sr=1-1"] Joel Bakan’s book [/ame] “The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power,” asserts that the corporation exhibits many of the traits found in people clinically defined as psychopaths.


Psychologist Dr. Robert Hare lists in the film psychopathic traits and ties them to the behavior of corporations:

• callous unconcern for the feelings for others;
• incapacity to maintain enduring relationships;
• reckless disregard for the safety of others;
• deceitfulness: repeated lying and conning others for profit;
• incapacity to experience guilt;
• failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behavior.

Interesting, isn't it?

 

[Odhanan]

I'm just glad I'm not publishing anything under 4e. After that, how a publisher can trust WotC to not yank the GSL from under their feet is just beyond me.