Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
WotC puts a stop to online sales of PDFs
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 4742810" data-attributes="member: 2067"><p>Ethics and morality don't enter into it. It's economics, which is neither ethical or moral. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/angel.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":angel:" title="Angel :angel:" data-shortname=":angel:" /> </p><p></p><p>I mean, I live in New York City. Should I really go send off an e-mail to Coach to let them know, hey, someone is making knock-offs of your stuff RIGHT DOWN ON CANAL STREET?!</p><p></p><p>The idea that you can stop piracy -- or even theivery -- is absurd on the face of it. Fighting a war on piracy is like fighting a war on drugs or like prohibition -- nobody really wins.</p><p></p><p>Piracy is going to happen. You can't stop it. You can mitigate it. One of the ways you mitigate it is by providing a legal alternative, especially one that is more convenient than the illegal one. The DDI and selling PDFs online were ALREADY things that were stopping it.</p><p></p><p>This smacks to me of "sacrificial lamb." It's something that WotC can get rid off without hurting a major market (I doubt PDF sales were very big), while saying "See, Bean Counters! We've been doing our part to stop the bad guys!"</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>If you're using a quality argument, I don't believe you truly understand what online piracy really is. No one refuses to download an illegal, free copy of something that they want just because it might be of, well, "bootleg" quality. </p><p></p><p>People were downloading PDF's of <em>1e</em> material in 2001. People are currently downloading re-re-recordings of Dead Kennedys concerts that were originally on shady audio from the '80s. Minor quality loss won't deter anything.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There are massive problems with it on an ISP level. For one, they can't shut down file sharing programs in general, because there are legal uses for them (it's the VHS/Betamax argument, in a nutshell). For two, the level of invasion of privacy that would enable an ISP to be able to see and legally report on what I'm doing on my computer would enter an Orwellian minefield of Big Brother supervision that any "free citizen" would balk at. </p><p></p><p>That ain't happenin' any time soon, and if it does, we'll have much bigger problems than pirated D&D books on our hands.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>For every news story the AP shuts down, 300 people twitter what's going on at 140 characters or less. The AP, like WotC, is shooting itself in the foot. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Piracy is to IP law as the Gutenberg Bible was to Christianity. New copying technologies invariably disrupt old ways of controlling information. But that's not really here or there. The ultimate point is that you can't stop piracy, especially not by cutting off a legal avenue of access.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The companies that thrive and succeed during the downturn will be the ones who innovate and grow new ways of doing things, rather than those that turtle up in their little shells. </p><p></p><p>It's when the dinosaurs fall that mammals can thrive, after all.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 4742810, member: 2067"] Ethics and morality don't enter into it. It's economics, which is neither ethical or moral. :angel: I mean, I live in New York City. Should I really go send off an e-mail to Coach to let them know, hey, someone is making knock-offs of your stuff RIGHT DOWN ON CANAL STREET?! The idea that you can stop piracy -- or even theivery -- is absurd on the face of it. Fighting a war on piracy is like fighting a war on drugs or like prohibition -- nobody really wins. Piracy is going to happen. You can't stop it. You can mitigate it. One of the ways you mitigate it is by providing a legal alternative, especially one that is more convenient than the illegal one. The DDI and selling PDFs online were ALREADY things that were stopping it. This smacks to me of "sacrificial lamb." It's something that WotC can get rid off without hurting a major market (I doubt PDF sales were very big), while saying "See, Bean Counters! We've been doing our part to stop the bad guys!" If you're using a quality argument, I don't believe you truly understand what online piracy really is. No one refuses to download an illegal, free copy of something that they want just because it might be of, well, "bootleg" quality. People were downloading PDF's of [I]1e[/I] material in 2001. People are currently downloading re-re-recordings of Dead Kennedys concerts that were originally on shady audio from the '80s. Minor quality loss won't deter anything. There are massive problems with it on an ISP level. For one, they can't shut down file sharing programs in general, because there are legal uses for them (it's the VHS/Betamax argument, in a nutshell). For two, the level of invasion of privacy that would enable an ISP to be able to see and legally report on what I'm doing on my computer would enter an Orwellian minefield of Big Brother supervision that any "free citizen" would balk at. That ain't happenin' any time soon, and if it does, we'll have much bigger problems than pirated D&D books on our hands. For every news story the AP shuts down, 300 people twitter what's going on at 140 characters or less. The AP, like WotC, is shooting itself in the foot. Piracy is to IP law as the Gutenberg Bible was to Christianity. New copying technologies invariably disrupt old ways of controlling information. But that's not really here or there. The ultimate point is that you can't stop piracy, especially not by cutting off a legal avenue of access. The companies that thrive and succeed during the downturn will be the ones who innovate and grow new ways of doing things, rather than those that turtle up in their little shells. It's when the dinosaurs fall that mammals can thrive, after all. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
WotC puts a stop to online sales of PDFs
Top