weem
First Post
As people have noted, there will always be piracy of the books - even if people have to scan the pages one at a time, ceasing to sell PDF's will not stop the piracy.
I'm not a print guy, but I assume that the printing of the book comes from some source that can easily be exported as a PDF (maybe it goes to print in pdf form, I don't know).
Assuming this, you could easily (cheaply) create a 'false' release pdf file. Using the PHB2 as an example, you could modify the source by...
1) re-arranging a few pages
2) removing some pages and duplicating others to make up the difference
3) remove bits of information - a power here, a paragraph there.
One person could do these things to one source file in under an hour - perhaps under 30 minutes. You might have this done 3 times, creating 3 'false' source files that are different from each other.
Next (or perhaps before), you create (very publicly) an "Anti DnD Piracy" Team. This could be in house people, or you could ask for the public's help - "Join this community to help stop piracy" etc.
To this team, you give the first false file a week or two before release. Instructions to the team might be - "post these as torrents over the next few weeks".
For those downloading torrents who aren't aware of the actions of the team, they are effectively NOT downloading your original work that they think they are. Odds are, they would be getting a bad copy - one that is not obviously bad, and may take some time to discover. By the time they discover it, chances are the book will have been released. Even if they decide to try and download it again, they will never be sure they are not getting another false file unless they look for the same aspect that gave it away previously - but that's where the second and third files come in - you hand them over to the team just after release with the same instructions. In fact, you could even give further instructions to "label the third file as a 'page scan' " of the book. As the actions of the team become more known, people will look for the page scanned versions as a way to avoid the false files, but grab these instead.
For those downloading torrents who are aware of the actions of the team, there won't be much point in trying to download it. Once you have a download, you can not be sure it is a good copy and that alone will invalidate it.
For those on the team, they are seeing some of the information before release, but they can not be entirely sure what is accurate and what is not. If this is kept in-house you can be a little more sure about who the files are going to anyway - but the benefit of having the community join is that you get many more people = many more torrents = many more false files going out at all kinds of intervals with varying user names, descriptions, etc.
The mission of the team should be very public - the more people who know about what the team is doing, the more who will likely avoid the hassle of trying to download the books - it puts that doubt in their minds as to the quality of the file they just downloaded - or were considering downloading.
Eventually, those determined enough to have it will get the 'correct' copies pirated - can't stop it - whether it's a scanned copy or not, it will happen. But I don't think many are so determined - many do it because it is easy and any hassle added to the process is not worth the time/effort.
It has been discussed that quality is not an issue - people mentioned 3e (I think) PDF's being popular regardless of poor quality - but the quality of the false files would be fine, it's the accuracy of the file that would be bad, which is death when it comes to this - who would use a PDF of any edition with the understanding that it was not (or may not be) accurate with regards to the information contained within.
This idea - this team - would be pretty low cost and simple (despite my muddling of it).
WotC says the PDF download ratio is 10:1 illegal vs legal. Pulling PDF's as they have effectively makes it 10:0 (as many have stated) - but if something as simple as this method could reduce piracy by... 20-30%, wouldn't it be worth it? I can imagine it doing even better than that too. Not only would it reduce the piracy, it would increase sales (who knows by how much and it's probably not measurable, but it would I'm sure).
If I had an RPG company and I was selling PDF's, this is something I would do myself. It's easy, and effective.
Anyway, that's just my 0.5 cent (the recession has really hit the value of my posts). I'm half awake so I hope it made sense like it does in my head, haha.
What do you (anyone) think?
I'm not a print guy, but I assume that the printing of the book comes from some source that can easily be exported as a PDF (maybe it goes to print in pdf form, I don't know).
Assuming this, you could easily (cheaply) create a 'false' release pdf file. Using the PHB2 as an example, you could modify the source by...
1) re-arranging a few pages
2) removing some pages and duplicating others to make up the difference
3) remove bits of information - a power here, a paragraph there.
One person could do these things to one source file in under an hour - perhaps under 30 minutes. You might have this done 3 times, creating 3 'false' source files that are different from each other.
Next (or perhaps before), you create (very publicly) an "Anti DnD Piracy" Team. This could be in house people, or you could ask for the public's help - "Join this community to help stop piracy" etc.
To this team, you give the first false file a week or two before release. Instructions to the team might be - "post these as torrents over the next few weeks".
For those downloading torrents who aren't aware of the actions of the team, they are effectively NOT downloading your original work that they think they are. Odds are, they would be getting a bad copy - one that is not obviously bad, and may take some time to discover. By the time they discover it, chances are the book will have been released. Even if they decide to try and download it again, they will never be sure they are not getting another false file unless they look for the same aspect that gave it away previously - but that's where the second and third files come in - you hand them over to the team just after release with the same instructions. In fact, you could even give further instructions to "label the third file as a 'page scan' " of the book. As the actions of the team become more known, people will look for the page scanned versions as a way to avoid the false files, but grab these instead.
For those downloading torrents who are aware of the actions of the team, there won't be much point in trying to download it. Once you have a download, you can not be sure it is a good copy and that alone will invalidate it.
For those on the team, they are seeing some of the information before release, but they can not be entirely sure what is accurate and what is not. If this is kept in-house you can be a little more sure about who the files are going to anyway - but the benefit of having the community join is that you get many more people = many more torrents = many more false files going out at all kinds of intervals with varying user names, descriptions, etc.
The mission of the team should be very public - the more people who know about what the team is doing, the more who will likely avoid the hassle of trying to download the books - it puts that doubt in their minds as to the quality of the file they just downloaded - or were considering downloading.
Eventually, those determined enough to have it will get the 'correct' copies pirated - can't stop it - whether it's a scanned copy or not, it will happen. But I don't think many are so determined - many do it because it is easy and any hassle added to the process is not worth the time/effort.
It has been discussed that quality is not an issue - people mentioned 3e (I think) PDF's being popular regardless of poor quality - but the quality of the false files would be fine, it's the accuracy of the file that would be bad, which is death when it comes to this - who would use a PDF of any edition with the understanding that it was not (or may not be) accurate with regards to the information contained within.
This idea - this team - would be pretty low cost and simple (despite my muddling of it).
WotC says the PDF download ratio is 10:1 illegal vs legal. Pulling PDF's as they have effectively makes it 10:0 (as many have stated) - but if something as simple as this method could reduce piracy by... 20-30%, wouldn't it be worth it? I can imagine it doing even better than that too. Not only would it reduce the piracy, it would increase sales (who knows by how much and it's probably not measurable, but it would I'm sure).
If I had an RPG company and I was selling PDF's, this is something I would do myself. It's easy, and effective.
Anyway, that's just my 0.5 cent (the recession has really hit the value of my posts). I'm half awake so I hope it made sense like it does in my head, haha.
What do you (anyone) think?
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