# [rant] Fighting intellectual theft on WOTC



## Heretic Apostate (Feb 15, 2004)

Ugh...  I don't know how you mods do it.  People really can't seem to grasp the fact that sharing copies of documents with all your friends, and a thousand strangers, is a _bad thing_.

I've been maligned and belittled on WOTC because I dared to tell someone that, even though they own the ESD version of two old WOTC/TSR supplements, it was not legal for them to get *.txt versions from anyone who might have copied the text from the PDF into Notepad and corrected the OCR errors.

As I understand it, there are only two authorized outside distributors of the electronic versions of the supplements, right?  svgames and rpgnow are the only two companies that may distribute them.

I also pointed out that, while intellectual theft was a bad thing, it might not be a good idea to try it on the manufacturer's message boards, since there was no legal way for them to obtain it from a non-authorized dealer (excerpts for sharing among your gaming group, for reviewing the documents, and for parody purposes being the only things permissible; wholesale copying of the entire file is not allowed...).

Okay, done ranting...  Was I out of line?  Check out the thread, but please post comments here, not in that thread!  (No need to possibly lure them back to EN World, right?  I'm not trying to flame them, nor am I trying to be a troll over there.  I'm just trying to pount out what is possibly an unpalatable truth to them, before they get themselves banned...)

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=180910


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## Planesdragon (Feb 15, 2004)

Heretic Apostate said:
			
		

> Ugh... I don't know how you mods do it. People really can't seem to grasp the fact that sharing copies of documents with all your friends, and a thousand strangers, is a _bad thing_.



 It's even worse than that.

 Thanks to the Open Gaming License, it IS allowable to share the rules we game with among friends, gaming groups, and people we've never even met.

 But there are rules to be followed, and the very same factors--Copyleft and ignorance--that led to so much software and music piracy have led to the current state of RPG piracy.

 When someone asks for something like that, take the chance to tell them about Open Gaming, or point them to the OGF and FGA websites.



> I've been maligned and belittled on WOTC because I dared to tell someone that, even though they own the ESD version of two old WOTC/TSR supplements, it was not legal for them to get *.txt versions from anyone who might have copied the text from the PDF into Notepad and corrected the OCR errors.



 By and by, I'm not 100% sure you're right on this part.  If I pay for an ESD, and you pay for an ESD, and then you edit the ESD, I believe that there are certain legal situations where you can send me that work.

 Though it's tricky, and it's on the level of photocopying an RPG book for use in the game.  (i.e., DON"T DO IT ON MESSAGEBOARDS!)


 Oh, and WotC is rather well aware of EnWorld.  If you're concerned about the 'mods, just post your concerns and contact WotC's board admins.


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## evileeyore (Feb 15, 2004)

I don't think Heretic is worried about mods, either coming on over here or causing trouble.

I think Heretic is worried about this Graz Hober and friends learning about the wonders of EnWorld.

Normally I am all about sharing good things with people.  However since this guy sems to hold intellectual conversation at the fling poopie level of social intercourse I would have to bring out the Pre-BanHammer, and stop it before it starts.

TTFN--EvilE

PS:  I had a really good laugh at how -every- post of Heretic repeated the refrain of: ... and asking for such illegal things on the _manufacturer's_ web boards is a bad idea...

Oh its teh funny.


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## trancejeremy (Feb 15, 2004)

I dunno - this seems very harmless.

The guy presumably owns the PDF's legally. Is it such a crime for him to get it in text form?  THe PDFs WOTC sells are impossible to print out, because they aren't OCRed and print the background and such and are basically almost unusable (the ones I've bought).

I also don't really remember the license agreement - but presumably it allows you to print copies. I can see being upset if he planned to resell them on Ebay, but just handing out portions to his players in his games? Not exactly a major crime.


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## Heretic Apostate (Feb 15, 2004)

Yup, I don't want to leave a trail of breadcrumbs back to EN World for angry posters to follow.  Which is also why I posted this message to Meta, since it's a rare individual who posts to or even reads Meta. 

I can't seem to bring up the WOTC End User License Agreement (EULA) on svgames.com, so I can't use that for a counter-argument.

But I _do_ remember the whole snafu over the Conversion Library here on EN World, where people were basically copied the entire supplement and then tacked on their conversion (thus removing the need to actually buy the ESD).  I don't think it's permitted to do anything that makes it unnecessary to purchase the ESD, nor do I think it's permitted to alter the ESD (for instance, conversions aren't allowed to alter the number of creatures in an encounter to balance it, or to substitute other creatures, and then release it for general consumption; within your own RPG group, sure, but not available to the general public).

As for the guy owning the supplements, how can he prove it?  On usenet newsgroups, there's always someone coming around, asking for CD keys because "I own the game, but I lost the CD case; can someone give me their CD key?"  Sure, maybe they're legit.  And maybe they're a pirate trying to get a valid CD key...

I tried a couple of the ESDs, and I can copy text using the Select Text tool.



			
				Return to the Keep on the Borderlands said:
			
		

> This​​section is intended primarily for Dungeon Masters new to
> ​
> their craft but may also prove useful for experienced Dungeon​Masters with new players, reminding them of some of the basics​



​
​


			
				Scourge of the Slavelords (A1-4) said:
			
		

> of Greyhawk, Scourge of the Slave Lords​must rely on your skills and knowledge to​succeed.​​*You *are the only person who
> ​
> knows the abilities and temperament of​your players and their characters. You are​



​

Sure, you've got to edit it some.  But the guy is _saying_ he wants to copy excerpts for his players.  If that's all he wants to do, he can simply copy the few paragraphs into Notepad, correct the spelling (I noticed, for instance, that the adventures from Dark Sun tend to have a LOT of spelling errors; not sure if that was from the actual product, or a failure of the OCR, but it needs some editing, definitely), and so forth.​
Basically, the guy is asking for the _entire_ document in a text file.  The only electronic versions of the files are in PDF format, scanned in.  He wants someone to do all the work of editing the file, then release it to someone from the general public, who (based only on his say-so) purportedly owns the product already.​
He doesn't want to spend the money to get the actual product, and he doesn't want to print out the few pages he wants, and he doesn't want to do the work of copying-and-editing...​
I frankly don't trust him...​


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## BigFreekinGoblinoid (Feb 15, 2004)

I think I'll register there with a username of "Moderator", and have a bit of fun with our friend!

Maybe something along the lines of:

"Thanks for coming to play tonight guys! 

Before we start, I have these 44 pages of text from the adventure I am going to run that I would like you to read!

Guys? Guys? Where ya going?" 

Feeling a little punchy tonight... 

I do understand how you feel, HA. You were trying to be helpful!


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## Heretic Apostate (Feb 15, 2004)

Ah, thanks, HyperSmurf.  Wasn't sure how to fix that, since I had just grabbed random paragraphs out of two Greyhawk-ish supplements I own to demonstrate that it is, in fact, possible to use the Select Text tool on the PDFs...

Weird, how the font messed up.  Guess next time, I'll have to filter it through Notepad or something...


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## Heretic Apostate (Feb 15, 2004)

BigFreekinGoblinoid said:
			
		

> Before we start, I have these 44 pages of text from the adventure I am going to run that I would like you to read!



From my understanding of that thread, I think he wants to include paragraphs from 44 pages of text, and rather than have a big bundle of photocopies, he wants to copy-and-paste into a document to hand out to the players.

So, for instance, to give the players more information about the Marklands, he'll hand out history, geography, politics, and so forth, so that the players aren't always asking, "So who's the mayor of this town?  And why is that guild so opposed to Greyhawk?"

Laudable goal, to give the players the same general knowledge (and to prevent whining for when they don't read it).  He just simply asked for a non-legal way of doing it.  He may have had the best of intentions, but that still doesn't make it right...


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## BigFreekinGoblinoid (Feb 15, 2004)

Yeah, I just got all fired up reading his posts though... I just remembered why I don't vist there on a regular basis...


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## Darkness (Feb 15, 2004)

Heretic Apostate said:
			
		

> Weird, how the font messed up. Guess next time, I'll have to filter it through Notepad or something...



Our version of vb board keeps the font of a cut-n-paste 
(Older versions didn't.) if that's what you did.


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## Hypersmurf (Feb 15, 2004)

Heretic Apostate said:
			
		

> Ah, thanks, HyperSmurf.  Wasn't sure how to fix that, since I had just grabbed random paragraphs out of two Greyhawk-ish supplements I own to demonstrate that it is, in fact, possible to use the Select Text tool on the PDFs...
> 
> Weird, how the font messed up.  Guess next time, I'll have to filter it through Notepad or something...




There's still a bunch of [LEFT]Text[/LEFT] tags around the paragraphs after the quotes, but they don't seem to be hurting anything.

Basically, all of the [FONT] and [SIZE] tags at the start of your pasted paragraphs were closed at the end of the message, instead of at the end of the quote.  I shifted them up.

-Hyp.


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## Michael Morris (Feb 15, 2004)

Darkness said:
			
		

> Our version of vb board keeps the font of a cut-n-paste
> (Older versions didn't.) if that's what you did.




I don't think the newer ones do either.

Release Candidate 3 is out.  Let's hope it's final so we can go to it and I can work on themes again.


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## kirinke (Feb 15, 2004)

huh. i don't have a problem converting pdf to word-perfect. just use select. (found that trick out when i was copying cheats from the IceWind Dale game  ) the pdf was kinda hard to use any other way. And no. I didn't distribute it to anyone else. But then, I don't think Icewind dale has a copyright on cheatcodes..... especially a full 10 page cheatcode list they produce themselves.


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## Darkness (Feb 15, 2004)

Michael Morris said:
			
		

> I don't think the newer ones do either.



It does for me at least. Font and size.


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## Michael Morris (Feb 15, 2004)

Darkness said:
			
		

> It does for me at least. Font and size.




?

I dunno.  We're running 3.0.0 beta.  The most current is 3.0.0 RC3.

I take it you've posted to boards running RC3?  If so, odd.  Very odd.


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## Heretic Apostate (Feb 15, 2004)

BigFreekinGoblinoid said:
			
		

> I think I'll register there with a username of "Moderator", and have a bit of fun with our friend!



You know WOTC is going to ban your heiny, right?


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## BigFreekinGoblinoid (Feb 15, 2004)

Heretic Apostate said:
			
		

> You know WOTC is going to ban your heiny, right?




Was that ME?


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## Darkness (Feb 15, 2004)

Michael Morris said:
			
		

> ?
> 
> I dunno. We're running 3.0.0 beta. The most current is 3.0.0 RC3.
> 
> I take it you've posted to boards running RC3? If so, odd. Very odd.



Nah, it was in EN World. Couple times. Dunno why. It surprised me and as such proved a little inconvenient, though.


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## Zappo (Feb 15, 2004)

BFG, you actually did it I see. 
 I *think* copying small amounts of text for the players is fair use, but of course I am probably wrong. Certainly I wouldn't consider it immoral... the problem is that the Select Tool does this job nicely already. So asking for the text means that either the guy is royally incompetent, or he doesn't actually own the PDF.

 And, in either case, he doesn't know much about education it seems.


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## Heretic Apostate (Feb 15, 2004)

In any case, I had already reported the thread to the WizO's, _before_ someone impersonated a moderator...

Dang, I hope I don't get banned myself.

Of course, they can track the IP address, so they should be able to prove it isn't me...


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## BigFreekinGoblinoid (Feb 16, 2004)

Vindication for HA! 

Quote from WizO_Jedi, moderator: 

"Heteric is correct. There is no legal place one can get the information you want in the format you require. On these forums that's the same as saying you can't get them at all."

Oh, and WHOMEVER it was that posted with a username of "moderator" has had their post deleted...

BUT - their account is still active: 

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=2583036#post2583036

I wouldn't be too worried about anyone tracking anybody down. 

Hey HA - why does it read "Kwalish" Apostate when you do your edits? Old Screen name?


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## Heretic Apostate (Feb 16, 2004)

Dang it!  They locked the thread!  Where am I supposed to do all my gloating?!?! 

BFG:  That's not an edit.  That's my sig.  It was co-opted by the Kwalish Brigade, about a year or two ago (note the date on the edit...).

Okay, not co-opted.  I just was so tickled pink that my name joined the Kwalish Brigade, I tossed it in my sig.

Plus, as some people found out the hard way, putting in things like "_Last edited by Morrus on 02-15-2004 at 04:18 PM._" only gets you in trouble...  (Mods don't take kindly to the suggestion that they're constantly editing people's posts...  )


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## Hypersmurf (Feb 16, 2004)

Heretic Apostate said:
			
		

> (Mods don't take kindly to the suggestion that they're constantly editing people's posts...  )



Hey!

-Hyp.

_Exactly.

- Darkness_


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