# PDFS--Of the WotC Court Case



## JohnRTroy (Apr 9, 2009)

Okay,

All of you are curious of the Lawsuit.

Here are the public records of the existing lawsuits.

The ZIP files are each separate suits.  The Letter Codes are the initials of the judges.  These are public records so there is no law or secret violations of me posting these.

Seems a straightforward case...

EDIT--Stupid Header Typo.

I am willing to provide updates, but keep in mind PACER has a cost of .08 per page, so at some point I may say "nah" and not get it, or wait until time has passed so is an economic download...


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## JohnRTroy (Apr 9, 2009)

Interesting point from one of the lawsuits...



> 29.  In addition to the watermark of the purchaser's name and order number, electronic books downloaded from DriveThruRPG also include a micro-watermark  embedded in a pixel of the downloaded work that also identifies the purchaser's account number which can then be traced to the purchaser's name and address.




It goes on to say that's how they got identified...


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## jdrakeh (Apr 9, 2009)

Thanks for posting these, Mr. Troy!


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## Caerin (Apr 9, 2009)

Thanks for making these documents available. 

It's also interesting that these involved scribd.


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## Imperialus (Apr 9, 2009)

wow... between the three cases they are estimating that 2993 people downloaded the PHB2 in the span of a few days...

With a cover price of 35 dollars that means that wizards lost 104755 dollars...


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## MerricB (Apr 9, 2009)

Imperialus said:


> wow... between the three cases they are estimating that 2993 people downloaded the PHB2 in the span of a few days...
> 
> With a cover price of 35 dollars that means that wizards lost 104755 dollars...




Well, not quite - Wizards doesn't get every cent of that $35. However, it's a significant amount.

Cheers!


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## malraux (Apr 9, 2009)

Imperialus said:


> wow... between the three cases they are estimating that 2993 people downloaded the PHB2 in the span of a few days...
> 
> With a cover price of 35 dollars that means that wizards lost 104755 dollars...




Assuming all would have purchased the book without the pdf available.


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## Wicht (Apr 9, 2009)

Its interesting that in all three cases, the embedded micro-ids did the job of identifying the culprits.  

As noticed repeatedly lately, they are eliminating one of their best tools in hunting down these pirates by eliminating the legal channels through which to mark the pdfs.


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## Nightson (Apr 9, 2009)

malraux said:


> Assuming all would have purchased the book without the pdf available.




Also assuming that nobody who pirated still went out and bought a copy.


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## Caerin (Apr 9, 2009)

malraux said:


> Assuming all would have purchased the book without the pdf available.




Right- you can't really determine loss in that fashion. They don't specify what they consider actual damages in this document.

Also, in addition to asking for actual damages/profit (when they're talking about 504 (b)) they're also asking for statutory damages for willful infringement (504(c), or up to $150,000 per infringement).


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## darjr (Apr 9, 2009)

Wicht said:


> Its interesting that in all three cases, the embedded micro-ids did the job of identifying the culprits.
> 
> As noticed repeatedly lately, they are eliminating one of their best tools in hunting down these pirates by eliminating the legal channels through which to mark the pdfs.





There is the idea that once the secret of the hidden water mark gets out, the pirates would go after it, making them completely useless.


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## xechnao (Apr 9, 2009)

darjr said:


> There is the idea that once the secret of the hidden water mark gets out, the pirates would go after it, making them completely useless.




Couldn't they change the hiding places of the watermarks?


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## MadLordOfMilk (Apr 9, 2009)

darjr said:


> There is the idea that once the secret of the hidden water mark gets out, the pirates would go after it, making them completely useless.



I was about to say "well, yeah, but how the heck are they going to find it?". Then I realized you could probably just get two or three separate people to order it then compare the PDFs to find the differences... gotta love how we can do stuff like that (I'd imagine with ease) with digital media.


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## darjr (Apr 9, 2009)

were these hidden water marks WotC tech? Or tech belonging to Paizo and DriveThru? Have all the water marks on those stores been compromised now?


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## malraux (Apr 9, 2009)

I sure do wish the document was OCRed so I could easily cut and paste from it.  Or that it were an OEF pdf....


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## xechnao (Apr 9, 2009)

MadLordOfMilk said:


> I was about to say "well, yeah, but how the heck are they going to find it?". Then I realized you could probably just get two or three separate people to order it then compare the PDFs to find the differences... gotta love how we can do stuff like that (I'd imagine with ease) with digital media.




What if you have some kind of algorithm that hides it to some different spot regarding the page number of the product? You would have to check page per page.


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## JohnRTroy (Apr 9, 2009)

MadLordOfMilk said:


> I was about to say "well, yeah, but how the heck are they going to find it?". Then I realized you could probably just get two or three separate people to order it then compare the PDFs to find the differences... gotta love how we can do stuff like that (I'd imagine with ease) with digital media.




Well, it could be very difficult depending on the stenography.  And you could add random pixels to each one as well--akin to a "salt" (hashing term), to prevent you from removing the watermark.  I don't think a simple file compare will find it that easily.  

I doubt it's a simple "single pixel" despite the court statement, or just on a single page.  

Watermarking is not fool-proof, but it will prevent "casual piracy", which might be all that matters.  It's a lot easier to upload a file than it is to remove DRM or hidden watermarks.

I suspect WoTC pulled PDFs to strategize a better protection system though--after seeing the complaints I doubt this is a huge conspiracy theory.  Whether that's a different format, going through their own store, or a better watermarking technique, remains to be seen.


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## malraux (Apr 9, 2009)

xechnao said:


> Couldn't they change the hiding places of the watermarks?




Well, I know zilch about the PDF format, but I can say that it should be easy to get a computer to do a pixel by pixel search to find such differences.


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## JohnRTroy (Apr 9, 2009)

malraux said:


> I sure do wish the document was OCRed so I could easily cut and paste from it.  Or that it were an OEF pdf....




Assuming you're talking about the court case documents...

I've seen other PACER documents that are in that format.  I guess it depends if they send Word or WordPerfect files to the court, or if the court just scans the document.  

FYI, feel free to pass these documents around--they are part of the public record, and aren't protected by copyright.  So if somebody can run an OCR on them, feel free.  (The cost to get them from PACER is just to pay for maintenance of the electronic repository.)


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## xechnao (Apr 9, 2009)

malraux said:


> Well, I know zilch about the PDF format, but I can say that it should be easy to get a computer to do a pixel by pixel search to find such differences.




Pixels of each page are more than 6 millions. Are PCs robust enough for this? Assuming software exists for the job.


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## Brown Jenkin (Apr 9, 2009)

Caerin said:


> Right- you can't really determine loss in that fashion. They don't specify what they consider actual damages in this document.
> 
> Also, in addition to asking for actual damages/profit (when they're talking about 504 (b)) they're also asking for statutory damages for willful infringement (504(c), or up to $150,000 per infringement).




It doesn't matter how much the court grants in damages. Real damages that can be collected can only go as high as the defendant can actually pay. The courts can award millions in damages, but WotC will be lucky to collect tens of thousands.


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## Imperialus (Apr 9, 2009)

xechnao said:


> Couldn't they change the hiding places of the watermarks?




not only that, but we just know that there is a hidden watermark, somewhere in one of the pixels of the PDF.  There are a lot of pixels in a PDF... I don't know much... or really anything about cracking DRM but that strikes me as being almost impossible to find and remove.


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## ProfessorCirno (Apr 9, 2009)

I know at least one of the pirates is not a US citizen and doesn't live in the US.  It'll be interesting to see how that effects the court.  THe country they're in isn't well known for working along with US customs and copyright laws.

Also, there's something humerously bizarre about all of us gathering around to freely share the court details about the lawsuit issued against people for freely sharing something


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## malraux (Apr 9, 2009)

xechnao said:


> Pixels of each page are more than 6 millions. Are PCs robust enough for this? Assuming software exists for the job.




I would assume that a PC could handle that.  I mean, your computer can easily handle not only displaying all those pixels, but dynamically scaling and rendering it.  And you'd only be searching for differences.  Beyond which, the pdf isn't pure image as a gif or jpg is.  The large file "contains" individual image files, lessening the load required for comparison.  That said, advanced levels of encryption could make it more difficult, as JohnRTroy said.


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## NMcCoy (Apr 9, 2009)

xechnao said:


> Pixels of each page are more than 6 millions. Are PCs robust enough for this? Assuming software exists for the job.



Given the software, detecting a single-pixel difference between PDFs could be done in a _trivial_ amount of time. Consider the fact that your computer needs to process all those pixels anyway in order to put them on the screen, after all.

However: Even if this particular system can be circumvented easily (and that may not necessarily be the case),  I'm sure there are several possible ways to have a steganographic watermarking system that's quite robust - there's a pretty major field of research dedicated to this very sort of thing, after all.


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## lmpjr007 (Apr 9, 2009)

Brown Jenkin said:


> It doesn't matter how much the court grants in damages. Real damages that can be collected can only go as high as the defendant can actually pay. The courts can award millions in damages, but WotC will be lucky to collect tens of thousands.



Then there is the little matter of jail time...


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## Brown Jenkin (Apr 9, 2009)

lmpjr007 said:


> Then there is the little matter of jail time...




There is no jail time possible for civil cases. For jail to be a possibility the "state" (local/state/federal) would have to file a criminal case and the likelyhood of that is as close to zero as to make it meaningless.


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## xechnao (Apr 9, 2009)

NMcCoy said:


> However: Even if this particular system can be circumvented easily (and that may not necessarily be the case),  I'm sure there are several possible ways to have a steganographic watermarking system that's quite robust - there's a pretty major field of research dedicated to this very sort of thing, after all.




Well I guess one could deconstruct the pdf file in image files and reconstruct it with another software so even if one hides to other elements of the pdf file information that would be lost in the process. I have very limited knowledge on these technical things though so I may very well saying only really stupid things here.


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## Deset Gled (Apr 9, 2009)

xechnao said:


> Well I guess one could deconstruct the pdf file in image files and reconstruct it with another software so even if one hides to other elements of the pdf file information that would be lost in the process.




Or someone could just buy a hard copy of the book and scan it.

It wouldn't be perfect, but there would be zero chance of traceability.  With some of the higher end vision software these days, you could probably even get a decent percentage of the text recognized to be searchable.  If someone cared enough, they could manually correct errors and re-proof the whole book.


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## Choronzon (Apr 9, 2009)

In one of the pdfs, under "Prayer for Relief", it says WOTC is seeking an injunction against the plaintiff to stop them from: "copying, displaying, distributing, creating derivative works or _otherwise using_protected elements of WOTC copyright.

Are they being banned from even _playing_ D&D?


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## f33b (Apr 9, 2009)

Thanks for the docs, interesting read. Does section V1, 1 ("Prayer for Relief") have anything to do with the PDF taken down? Is DriveThruRPG/OBS a person "in active concert or participation" with the named defendants? 

Also, regarding the pixel wide watermark, I'm not an expert, but I do work in a company that produces print and ebook quality PDFs (honestly, I work in a different department), but running some kind of diff against two or more pdfs isn't as not trivial as some posters make it sound. Remember, PDFs arose out of Postscript languange, these aren't flat image files like jpgs or gifs. Much of the content is encapsulated as vector graphics. Even if the micro water mark is an embedded raster image, you would probably have to parse the underlying Postscript code to identify the stream containing the image data. Removing this data will, in all probability, break the PDF (make it unreadable to readers, corrupt the data.)

edit: to clarify, (or not) it is conceivable that the micro watermark is a one pixel wide, transparent image object that is present in the pdf as a transparency, and is placed over or behind a larger image on the page. 

You could harvest the text out the PDF, but would be left with a flat text file, and most likely would have issues with text being lost due to unsupported fonts and crazy formatting to boot. 

If we look at the complaints, only three defendants were actually identified as buying the PDFs, the others, including the three John Does, "just" redistributed the watermarked PDFs (obviously, the meat of the complaint). 

I think WoTC showed their hand too soon on this one, better if they had waited and identified more individuals involved with the initial purchase and infringing event, so to cast a bigger net. Of course, letting it be known that there is a watermark which 99.99% of all users will not be able to see, find or do anything about should do something to curb (but not suppress, people do have scanners after all) pirating.

WoTC could also look into using something like Microsoft Reader, which is a pretty heavily DRM'd eBook platform, but I doubt that would be widely popular, as the most secure form of Microsoft Reader requires users to have a Microsoft Passport account.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 9, 2009)

Brown Jenkin said:


> It doesn't matter how much the court grants in damages. Real damages that can be collected can only go as high as the defendant can actually pay. The courts can award millions in damages, but WotC will be lucky to collect tens of thousands.



Very true, but a high damage award could mean a line on the defendant's property and other un-fun things I'm sure he never in a million years thought he was going to face.


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## tomBitonti (Apr 9, 2009)

My (vague) understanding is that Watermarking technology is (or has to be) much more robust than the simple strategies which are suggested.  Aren't there ways to hide the watermark in what appears effectively to be noise added to the data?  (And which shows uncorrelated and random differences between any pair of documents?)  But there are very bright and hard working folks who make their entire careers on this sort of stuff.  I have to figure that there is an amazing amount of sophistication in the technology.


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## Silverblade The Ench (Apr 9, 2009)

Question, since I didn't read the court documents:
How do they know the _accused _actually put these items up on P2P themselves?
How can they prove that someone didn't hack their PC and take the files, or a friend using that PC, considering how many folks' WIFI networks aren't secured, PCs that are shared, and how many folk's computers are riddled with malware? 
Or that the security system has itself been broken..rather neat way to cover your tracks by putting Santa Claus or some poor schlub as the actual ID, eh? 

I know civil cases require less proof than criminal, but the burden of proof etc...ya know?

And the concept that copyright cases can hit ordinary Joe Bloes harder than _criminal _fines...is outrageous.

And for the record, I support D&D by _buying _it...rather a bloody lot of it over the years. My concerns are about this copyright and IP madness.


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## HeinorNY (Apr 9, 2009)

What's the point in sueing a guy from the Phillippines?


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## Glyfair (Apr 9, 2009)

Silverblade The Ench said:


> How do they know the _accused _actually put these items up on P2P themselves?
> How can they prove that someone didn't hack their PC and take the files, or a friend using that PC, considering how many folks' WIFI networks aren't secured, PCs that are shared, and how many folk's computers are riddled with malware?



From the documents it is clear that the main argument will point to the fact that the watermarks with their name on it were removed.  It shows they were trying to hide their identity.  Someone who stole it from them would have little reason to do that.


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## Charwoman Gene (Apr 9, 2009)

xechnao said:


> Pixels of each page are more than 6 millions. Are PCs robust enough for this? Assuming software exists for the job.




Well, seeing as how most PC can complete a BILLION operations/sec* we shoul be okay.

*Yes, this is a gross over simplification.


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## Arivendel (Apr 9, 2009)

ainatan said:


> What's the point in sueing a guy from the Phillippines?



Because by suing the ~ don't use profanity thanks - PS~ you make the statement that no matter where you are you WILL be charged, prosecuted and forced to pay up if WotC finds you.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 9, 2009)

xechnao said:


> Pixels of each page are more than 6 millions. Are PCs robust enough for this? Assuming software exists for the job.




Of course they are - they need to display the pixels after all. 

Going over even 6 Million Pixels is not all that hard. 

A 10 Megapixel image (like from a good camera, about 3,000 x 3,000 Pixels, larger than any common monitor display can present you) needs around 
40 Megabyte of memory in RAM if fully decoded. (Assuming it contains the information for the Red, Green and Blue Channel and an Alpha Channel for transparancy, using 255 distinct values - bytes - for each channel). 

Think about how much RAM you have in your PC...


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 9, 2009)

Deset Gled said:


> Or someone could just buy a hard copy of the book and scan it.
> 
> It wouldn't be perfect, but there would be zero chance of traceability.  With some of the higher end vision software these days, you could probably even get a decent percentage of the text recognized to be searchable.  If someone cared enough, they could manually correct errors and re-proof the whole book.




Did you know that many printers come with a "watermark", too. Each page is imprinted with it - invisibly to the naked eye, but if you print out something, it could be traced back to the buyer of the printer. 

Similar things might be available for scanners, automatically watermarking your scans. (I don't know if that actually is the case, though.) What alone is possible is that, if you create an image with some kind of meta data (like JPEG, the most common file type I suppose), it might just contain the information in your meta data. Of course, removing that is relative easy.

There are probably always ways around it. But scanning an book and checking there are no hidden information in it relating to you is a lot more effort than just uploading some random PDF you just downloaded from a publishing website. It's also more work than removing watermarks from an existing PDFs, since the latter is just a little crunch time for your processor, not requiring you to scan in 100+ pages book.


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## Nikosandros (Apr 9, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Did you know that many printers come with a "watermark", too. Each page is imprinted with it - invisibly to the naked eye, but if you print out something, it could be traced back to the buyer of the printer.



How so? It's not like you have to show ID when you buy a printer or a scanner.


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## Derulbaskul (Apr 9, 2009)

In no particular order of stupidity:

1. Wizards has stopped PDF sales DESPITE the fact that the existing security process allowed them to identify the sources of the pirated materials... um, so that they can have time to come up with a security system that would let them, um, identify the source of pirated materials.

2. This relates to fewer than 3,000 copies. The legal fees alone would have already exceeded the total revenue (and not profit) of 3,000 sales at MRRP!

3. For the sake of 3,000 copies that probably had no impact on Wizards' revenues (or profits), Wizards has unleashed an Epic-level spell of _nerdrage_across the internet doing untold damage to the brand with those of us who actually buy their products.

No business should be run by its lawyers. And I say that as someone who likes lawyers, who has close friends and business partners who are lawyers, but that doesn't mean that I let them run the commercial side of my businesses (just as I don't run the legal side of my businesses).

However, I do wish I was a lawyer for Wizards and/or Hasbro because I can see now that they would be an easy mark for squeezing out some ridiculous fees to fund multiple tilts at multiple small windmills.

If Wizards has a CEO who is worth his pay he should be stepping in right now and providing some real leadership.


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## Quartz (Apr 9, 2009)

I really don't get the outrage. An alleged copyright infringer has been found and is being prosecuted. Pretty standard. Wizards has stopped selling PDFs. It's a pity, but clearly there isn't sufficient profit in it for them. Maybe the legal fees for this case have brought it home to them. It's a business decision. Big deal. I mean, we managed before pdfs, didn't we?


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## Derulbaskul (Apr 9, 2009)

Quartz said:


> (snip)  I mean, we managed before pdfs, didn't we?




Yes, but now I live in two countries: I prep in one and play in the other and it's _not convenient_ to cart my 400 kgs of books 7,000 kms each way.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 9, 2009)

Nikosandros said:


> How so? It's not like you have to show ID when you buy a printer or a scanner.




Still narrows things down considerably. They will know at least at which shop they were sold, which means they have to cross-check "only" the list of customers in the area of that shop with other data. 

Even if they can't find you with it, they can later use it as evidence against you, because one you are caught, checking your printer or scanner can be enough.


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## xechnao (Apr 9, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Still narrows things down considerably. They will know at least at which shop they were sold, which means they have to cross-check "only" the list of customers in the area of that shop with other data.
> 
> Even if they can't find you with it, they can later use it as evidence against you, because one you are caught, checking your printer or scanner can be enough.




Ahh, this is way too optimistic IMO. I doubt shop inventory identifies individual physical products (only in some food fields -such as wine bottles have I seen this).

Moreover even if there was shop ID and you found out the shop that sold it you would need lots of luck to make something out of it. Even more I am not sure that the shop should cooperate due to privacy reasons.


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## lmpjr007 (Apr 9, 2009)

Brown Jenkin said:


> There is no jail time possible for civil cases. For jail to be a possibility the "state" (local/state/federal) would have to file a criminal case and the likelyhood of that is as close to zero as to make it meaningless.




After they win a civil case on the people, HOW difficult will it be for the "State" to go after them for a criminal case?  They have already proved them guilty in case.  That is basically an automatic conviction if you don't mess it up.


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## Nikosandros (Apr 9, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Still narrows things down considerably. They will know at least at which shop they were sold, which means they have to cross-check "only" the list of customers in the area of that shop with other data.
> 
> Even if they can't find you with it, they can later use it as evidence against you, because one you are caught, checking your printer or scanner can be enough.




Well, the definition of area can be rather vague. I bought my last HP printer at a big store on the outskirts of Rome, rather far from my home. It's a popular place and the list of potential customers is several millions...

On the other hand, this conversation gave me a disturbing thought. What if in the future, all printers and scanners will have this kind of watermarks and you will always be required to identify yourself when you buy one? After all, that's what happens with sim cards for cell phones currently...


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## Belgos (Apr 9, 2009)

Nikosandros said:


> How so? It's not like you have to show ID when you buy a printer or a scanner.





Very true,  I can confirm this as my partner works on 'Question Documents' as her daily grind in a Police forensics lab.  To answer the question,  it only takes a forensic scientist to poinpoint the watermark with the printer in question, which is then tied to the manuafacturer, then the store it was shipped to, then to who it was sold if payed by credit or POS.  If by cash, that can be traced to the time of sale and a marriage of surveillance cameras.  Of course, this process only works in a perfect scenario; real world physics always throws up extenuating circumstance or five to make it harder.  Just remember, it is well within the realms of possiblity to trace it to at least the time and place the printer was initially sold.  Extenuating circumstances just make the trail longer.


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## pedr (Apr 9, 2009)

lmpjr007 said:


> After they win a civil case on the people, HOW difficult will it be for the "State" to go after them for a criminal case?  They have already proved them guilty in case.  That is basically an automatic conviction if you don't mess it up.



Although the US Congress has created a law which might apply here, the usual (and almost worldwide) situation is that copyright infringement is a tort, i.e. a civil wrong, and not a crime. This action, pursuing those who infringed copyright in civil court for damages, is the appropriate and most usual course of action. 

Criminal offences relating to copyright infringement tend to be linked to cases of organised copyright infringement for the pursuit of profit. I'm not an expert on US law (obviously!) and discussions on this previously have suggested that the US Act was amended to include criminal liability if the losses reach a certain level, even if the infringement wasn't for commercial reasons, but this is unusual. This is why many of us with some legal understanding disagree with the 'piracy is theft' argument: while taking a penny from someone else without their permission is theft as well as being a tort, it's not always or generally the case that other civil wrongs also lead to criminal liability. Just because something could cause another person a loss which the courts would seek to remedy does not mean that the criminal law has been breached (see, by analogy, breaches of contract, or - more explicitly - remedies for negligently causing injury).

Finally (!!) the burden of proof in civil cases is 'on the balance of probabilities' or 'on the preponderance of the evidence' - a far lower standard than 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. While a judgment on the civil case might help a prosecutor (and bring more information to light) it isn't a 'slam dunk'.


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## Nikosandros (Apr 9, 2009)

Belgos said:


> Very true,  I can confirm this as my partner works on 'Question Documents' as her daily grind in a Police forensics lab.  To answer the question,  it only takes a forensic scientist to poinpoint the watermark with the printer in question, which is then tied to the manuafacturer, then the store it was shipped to, then to who it was sold if payed by credit or POS.  If by cash, that can be traced to the time of sale and a marriage of surveillance cameras.  Of course, this process only works in a perfect scenario; real world physics always throws up extenuating circumstance or five to make it harder.  Just remember, it is well within the realms of possiblity to trace it to at least the time and place the printer was initially sold.  Extenuating circumstances just make the trail longer.



I'm not disputing that this works in Australia, but I'm fairly certain that in Italy this would be currently impossible. I sincerely doubt that electronic shop keep a database that correlates customer data with inventory data of sold items. As for surveillance cameras, the recordings must be destroyed after a fixed time, IIRC.


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## avin (Apr 9, 2009)

That would never work here in Brasil or other 3rd world countries.


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## Grazzt (Apr 9, 2009)

Imperialus said:


> wow... between the three cases they are estimating that 2993 people downloaded the PHB2 in the span of a few days...
> 
> With a cover price of 35 dollars that means that wizards lost 104755 dollars...




Not exactly. Of those 2,993 people, what percentage would buy the PDF instead of the actual book? Also- what percentage of those would NEVER buy either one? That last group is not paying customers....so their dollars wouldn't count in that equation.


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## jensun (Apr 9, 2009)

pedr said:


> Finally (!!) the burden of proof in civil cases is 'on the balance of probabilities' or 'on the preponderance of the evidence' - a far lower standard than 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. While a judgment on the civil case might help a prosecutor (and bring more information to light) it isn't a 'slam dunk'.



No, no it isn't.  The STANDARD of proof is balance of probabilities as opposed to beyond reasonable doubt. 

The BURDEN refers to who is required to prove the particular issue.


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## JohnRTroy (Apr 9, 2009)

Since people are mentioning foreign countries, I wonder if WoTC might decide on a strategy to not allow PDF sales outside the US and Canada, either stopping sales in the EU or at lease delaying sales to those people until a few months have passed.

That's another possibility why they've pulled PDFs.  If they can't control the foreign piracy, they might want to keep it to the countries that allow them to prosecute--at least for a little while, to minimize "Day Zero" piracy.


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## Nikosandros (Apr 9, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> Since people are mentioning foreign countries, I wonder if WoTC might decide on a strategy to not allow PDF sales outside the US and Canada, either stopping sales in the EU or at lease delaying sales to those people until a few months have passed.
> 
> That's another possibility why they've pulled PDFs.  If they can't control the foreign piracy, they might want to keep it to the countries that allow them to prosecute--at least for a little while, to minimize "Day Zero" piracy.



We were actually drifting on a tangent related to printers and scanners, but I guess that you might be right. Amazon, just to cite an example, doesn't sell digital downloads to customers abroad.


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## avin (Apr 9, 2009)

Oh, nice, now you guys are going to stop them cancel my DDI signature as well because I live in Brasil?  _(this is a hyperbole)_

I was talking about the "trace the scan owner" trick. Brasil operates under international law.


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## Drkfathr1 (Apr 9, 2009)

And since these lawsuits are specifically about pirating of PH2, it may be hard to determine how much money they lost, when by all accounts, PH2 is SOLD OUT! 

But yeah, as others have mentioned, of those @3000 or less downloads, how many were done by folks that already had bought a physical copy?


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## pedr (Apr 9, 2009)

jensun said:


> No, no it isn't.  The STANDARD of proof is balance of probabilities as opposed to beyond reasonable doubt.
> 
> The BURDEN refers to who is required to prove the particular issue.



Oops. 

Yeah, one of the problems with teaching law at a pre-professional (undergrad) level is that we don't cover the procedural stuff as well as we might. Still, an inexcusable slip-up!


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## smug (Apr 9, 2009)

xechnao said:


> Pixels of each page are more than 6 millions. Are PCs robust enough for this? Assuming software exists for the job.




Each pixel would be at least a byte*, right, so are the all-image pages of your pdfs really 6 MB a page or more (even with medium compression, that's 1.2 MB a page)? Your monitor can't display that many pixels anyhow and although print quality is different, the pdfs they sell aren't print quality, surely? How many of us have a top-quality printer anyhow, that it'd be worth selling them, with all the extra hassle and cost that'd entail?

However, the pages aren't all images; it must be more efficient for text.

Anyhow, even if they are using 6 million pixels per page (and they could be; I don't know anything about pdf or publishing or even images, really, other than as binary files; I'm a coder) I don't think that it's a computationally tricky problem to find the differences between two of the files. However, if they are (and I assume they do) changing the location of the naughty pixel, the number of different copies you'd need to be confident, assuming they are being clever and throwing in some other random naughty pixels, is perhaps too large to organise or buy that many copies. That's a different issue.



NMcCoy said:


> Given the software, detecting a single-pixel difference between PDFs could be done in a _trivial_ amount of time. Consider the fact that your computer needs to process all those pixels anyway in order to put them on the screen, after all.
> 
> However: Even if this particular system can be circumvented easily (and that may not necessarily be the case),  I'm sure there are several possible ways to have a steganographic watermarking system that's quite robust - there's a pretty major field of research dedicated to this very sort of thing, after all.





You can, according to a paper I read a while back, encode the watermark in the Fourier ampiltudes; you make a spatial fourier transform of the image, doctor some of the amplitudes a tiny bit, then transform back. This can be undetectable to the naked eye because it turns out that Fourier phases are more important to us, visually. You can then get that information back, should the image turn up somewhere illicitly, by comparing a Fourier transform of the evildoer's image with a Fourier transform of the original.

I am sure that's more hassle than it's worth, mind.

Ironically, I looked into this only after one of my legitimate pdfs ended up somewhere it shouldn't have.

*The pixel storing the customer number would have to be the same size, and you'd need more than a byte to store an appropriate number of customer numbers; of course, you could combine the number stored with the location and that would be big enough for _all_ customer numbers, in combination.


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## Vyvyan Basterd (Apr 9, 2009)

Drkfathr1 said:


> And since these lawsuits are specifically about pirating of PH2, it may be hard to determine how much money they lost, when by all accounts, PH2 is SOLD OUT!
> 
> But yeah, as others have mentioned, of those @3000 or less downloads, how many were done by folks that already had bought a physical copy?




I think the simplest point to make is that, assuming the 2,993 downloads of illegal pdfs is accurate, we know with reasonable assurance that those 2,993 people wanted a pdf copy of the PHB2 (if they didn't want it, why did they download it?) but did not pay for it. That is a direct loss. It does not matter if they would have paid for it. Nor does it matter if they paid for it in another format. 2,993 people allegedly stole an illegal copy instead of paying for it. It is cut and dry to me.


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## Drkfathr1 (Apr 9, 2009)

Vyvyan Basterd said:


> I think the simplest point to make is that, assuming the 2,993 downloads of illegal pdfs is accurate, we know with reasonable assurance that those 2,993 people wanted a pdf copy of the PHB2 (if they didn't want it, why did they download it?) but did not pay for it. That is a direct loss. It does not matter if they would have paid for it. Nor does it matter if they paid for it in another format. 2,993 people allegedly stole an illegal copy instead of paying for it. It is cut and dry to me.




Fair enough, but many of us don't see it as cut and dry. 

Many of us don't see file sharing as theft either, but that can be debated endlessly.


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## roguerouge (Apr 9, 2009)

Another example of a WotC blunder: They could have sold these lawsuit .pdfs for phat l00ts. Now, valuable information such as this is available free on the internet when they could have sold these at a dollar a pop. When will they join the 21st century!? 

 , obviously.


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## Vyvyan Basterd (Apr 9, 2009)

Drkfathr1 said:


> Fair enough, but many of us don't see it as cut and dry.
> 
> Many of us don't see file sharing as theft either, but that can be debated endlessly.




And I think that is a root problem with our society. People want things but are unwilling to pay for them. It may be going too far to call it Theft. But this attitude of Sharing other people's works and feeling entitled to do so through illegal means has caused this current problem. Yes, I am completely in agreement with 99.99% of posters here that WotC's reaction to the problem is completely off-base and will prove ineffective and I wish they had taken a different tactic. But the problem was caused by people rationalizing their illegal actions as ethical behavior. I'm sorry we all must suffer because some people cannot discern the difference between right and wrong.


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## Eldragon (Apr 9, 2009)

While I think a program that scrubs out the watermarks given two PDFs to compare against would be quite easy. It would be MUCH easier to buy a PDF under a false name using a gift card or stolen credit card number. All from the convenience of a public WiFi location.

Personally I have a downloaded PDF for every hardcopy I own, since i don't like hauling 20+ books to every gaming session. I bring a USB flash drive with all my books and the 1 or 2 books I plan on using. Were those downloads illegal? Maybe, but since I own the book in question, it hardly matters.


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## Drkfathr1 (Apr 9, 2009)

Vyvyan Basterd said:


> And I think that is a root problem with our society. People want things but are unwilling to pay for them. It may be going too far to call it Theft. But this attitude of Sharing other people's works and feeling entitled to do so through illegal means has caused this current problem. Yes, I am completely in agreement with 99.99% of posters here that WotC's reaction to the problem is completely off-base and will prove ineffective and I wish they had taken a different tactic. But the problem was caused by people rationalizing their illegal actions as ethical behavior. I'm sorry we all must suffer because some people cannot discern the difference between right and wrong.




But see, the problem is who gets to decide unequivocally for everyone what's right and what's wrong? 

I respect your right to feel the way you do, but honestly, we all have to realize that not everyone suscribes to the same values/morals/ethics. 

It is illegal. 

Immoral? By some standards. By all standards? Not by any means.


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## Vascant (Apr 9, 2009)

lmpjr007 said:


> After they win a civil case on the people, HOW difficult will it be for the "State" to go after them for a criminal case?  They have already proved them guilty in case.  That is basically an automatic conviction if you don't mess it up.




Incorrect..

It takes far less to get a civil case to award in your favor then to be convicted of a criminal case.


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## Vyvyan Basterd (Apr 9, 2009)

Drkfathr1 said:


> But see, the problem is who gets to decide unequivocally for everyone what's right and what's wrong?
> 
> I respect your right to feel the way you do, but honestly, we all have to realize that not everyone suscribes to the same values/morals/ethics.
> 
> ...




I was going to say I never brought morality into the discussion and then I thought to educate myself. I see that ethics and morals are synonymous at times and each has a myriad of meanings.

My understanding was and the usage I perpetuate when I speak on the matter is that ethics are more absolute. Who gets to decide what is ethical behavior? Our society through its laws. So, to me, Illegal = Unethical.

My understanding and usage of immoral is much different and that is why I avoid using the term. Who decides what is immoral? The individual. That is why moral debates IMO are useless. To me, immoral does not equal illegal by necessity, nor does something being illegal mean it is automatically immoral.

So, under my personal definitions of ethical behavior I still hold that people downloading material illegally are acting in an unethical manner. But I geuss I could leave the term Unethical out of the discussion in the future and be clearer by using the term Illegal or explaining myself more clearly instead of using the term Unethical as a form of shorthand.


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## Bleoberis De Ganis (Apr 9, 2009)

Nightson said:


> Also assuming that nobody who pirated still went out and bought a copy.




Also assuming that those that didn't were going to buy a copy even if a pdf wasn't available.


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## Roger (Apr 9, 2009)

I ran one of the PDFs through an OCR.  I haven't really checked it for accuracy, though.

A bit too long for a board post so I'm hosting it here:

Wizards v. Nolan and Osmena « Stirges Suck

I'll do the others if there's an outcry of demand for them.



Cheers,
Roger


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## Imban (Apr 9, 2009)

Vyvyan Basterd said:


> (if they didn't want it, why did they download it?)




Abject stupidity?  Or rather, not really weighing it with the same seriousness they would an actual purchase.

I mean, I've certainly downloaded stuff before that I later realized I would never use in any fashion and then deleted unopened. Since the purchasing barrier for a free internet download is basically nothing - click on link, decide where to save to, hit OK - you get an amazingly higher amount of downloads than you would purchases.


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## darjr (Apr 9, 2009)

Derulbaskul said:


> In no particular order of stupidity:
> 
> 1. Wizards has stopped PDF sales DESPITE the fact that the existing security process allowed them to identify the sources of the pirated materials... um, so that they can have time to come up with a security system that would let them, um, identify the source of pirated materials.
> 
> ...




Yes, very stupid. I'm hoping that the Q&A thing the ENWorld staff has arranged with WotC is a part of that last paragraph.


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## ProfessorCirno (Apr 9, 2009)

I think it's worth noting that the pdfs don't say _everything_.  For starters, the alleged pirate from the Philippines is a minor.

So WotC, we're trying to attack minors in third world countries now?  And yet you're the ones talking about morals and ethics?

Edit: Also, isn't it *illegal* to name a minor in papers like this?  Hahahaha.  WotC, you're not good at this, are you?


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## JohnRTroy (Apr 10, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> I think it's worth noting that the pdfs don't say _everything_.  For starters, the alleged pirate from the Philippines is a minor.
> 
> So WotC, we're trying to attack minors in third world countries now?  And yet you're the ones talking about morals and ethics?
> 
> Edit: Also, isn't it *illegal* to name a minor in papers like this?  Hahahaha.  WotC, you're not good at this, are you?




Being a minor is no excuse, nor is living in a so-called "third world country".  He obviously had access to computer and a credit card, this can't be a starving ignorant boy in a shanty.  He broke the law and WoTC is in the right to go after him.

And from what I understand, it's not illegal to name the minors of civil lawsuits.  It may be illegal to release the name of criminal defendants, but that would depend on the nature of the crime, the district, and mitigating circumstances (minor and juvenile are two separate terms, for instance).


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## wingsandsword (Apr 10, 2009)

Trying to prevent any .pdf's being made and distributed is like trying to swim up a waterfall.

Even if they came up with virtually airtight security, as has been shown it's possible (thanks to cash, public WiFi, and other anonymous means) to purchase the book in question, anonymously obtaining the hardware and software required to turn the book into a file, and then distribute it and work around watermarks in scanners and printers.

It's just a matter of how much money and effort is someone willing to put into doing something that they aren't doing for financial gain.  Someone does this because they either want to share the book with others (like a lot of out-of-print pdf's on the P2P nets that are probably out there because somebody wants to share some old gem they like), or because they are just irate at the company in question and see it as their little petty revenge.

Someone really, really doesn't like 4e and wants to "stick it to WotC" as revenge for canceling 3.5 (or eliminating the legal pdf downloads from the web, or other nerdrage target of the month)?  I could see somebody spending a few hundred dollars on the right hardware and books and putting lots of stuff out on the net.  WotC's lawyers will run themselves ragged chasing it all down, and if somebody is pretty cagey it's going to be really hard to get it traced back to you.

This is the same sort of thing that the music industry went through, and what really cut into that piracy was making high quality, affordable downloads easily available (iTunes et al), not pulling the legal downloads from the web and suing.

I honestly wonder what goes through the Hasbro execs minds sometimes.  It's crystal clear that WotC is not run in any way, shape or form by gamers, nerds, or the like, but the "suits" who use standard large-corporation procedures and mentalities.  In theory this is good because it's the professionals who are supposed to know how to do things, but it can mean seeing the same mistakes that other businesses have made repeated over again because of the same patterns of behavior.


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## ProfessorCirno (Apr 10, 2009)

wingsandsword said:


> Someone really, really doesn't like 4e and wants to "stick it to WotC" as revenge for canceling 3.5 (or eliminating the legal pdf downloads from the web, or other nerdrage target of the month)?  I could see somebody spending a few hundred dollars on the right hardware and books and putting lots of stuff out on the net.  WotC's lawyers will run themselves ragged chasing it all down, and if somebody is pretty cagey it's going to be really hard to get it traced back to you.




It goes beyond even that.  So far, the three alleged pirates in this case that I've seen or known were all huge 4e fans.  That's *why* they shared the product.  And there's always going to be fans that scan the book and throw it up on rapidshare for their friends.  The rs spreads, other people see it, then someone takes it and others and puts the compilation torrent on demonoid.  Most of the "pirates" that spread files are people who LOVE the product.  That's why they're sharing it.

And that's why killing pirating is impossible.  So long as people *like* the product, it's going to be shared.


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## JohnRTroy (Apr 10, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> Most of the "pirates" that spread files are people who LOVE the product.  That's why they're sharing it.
> 
> And that's why killing pirating is impossible.  So long as people *like* the product, it's going to be shared.




You also can't stop counterfeiting.  Should the governments of the world just let it go?  (I really hate the paralogical statement about "we should ignore piracy, because you can't stop it".  We should also stop wiping our rears, because they're just gonna get dirty again!  Or we should ignore immunization because we're all going to die anyway.  Or we should stop having door locks because they won't really stop a determined thief!)

Loving a product does not mean you get to do what you want with it.  Wrapping up an illegal act as something to ignore because it's done out of "love" is pretty assinine.

If you're a true fan, you would have some empathy, and pay the company their asking price.  Otherwise, your not a real fan, you're a selfish person.  Most fans will pay the writer, performer, etc.


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## ProfessorCirno (Apr 10, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> You also can't stop counterfeiting.  Should the governments of the world just let it go?  (I really hate the paralogical statement about "we should ignore piracy, because you can't stop it".  We should also stop wiping our rears, because they're just gonna get dirty again!  Or we should ignore immunization because we're all going to die anyway.  Or we should stop having door locks because they won't really stop a determined thief!)
> 
> Loving a product does not mean you get to do what you want with it.  Wrapping up an illegal act as something to ignore because it's done out of "love" is pretty assinine.
> 
> If you're a true fan, you would have some empathy, and pay the company their asking price.  Otherwise, your not a real fan, you're a selfish person.  Most fans will pay the writer, performer, etc.




Counterfeiting isn't pirating, though.  

You're also confusing the idea of "liking a product" with "Absolutely loving the product and having your laptop desktop be a picture of, say, Chris Avellone."  And again, the puddle of what is and isn't pirating is a *very* muddy one.

I have, let's say, the PHB2.  The others at my table don't.  I let them use it while we play.  Is there pirating going on?  More so, would *any* of you at this website tell your other group members "No, you can't use this book.  Not until you've bought it.  Only I'm allowed to use it."

I have a LOT of books they don't.  I let them use it while we play.  Is it pirating now?

I let them borrow the books when we aren't playing because they're interested.  How about now?  Piracy?

Replace books with pdfs.  Are any of those steps now (or no longer) piracy?

I put the pdfs on a website so they access them easier.

I compile the various feats, spells, classes, abilities, paragon paths, etc, onto one pdf.

I let others use that pdf.

I let others borrow that pdf.

I put that pdf on a website.  It's probably the most insanely useful thing in all of existance.  _I tell only my group._

_And now things get tricky._  Take any of the above examples regarding the pdf or pdfs and add "Other people find out about it and download it as well."

Am I a nasty, dirty pirate?

Counterfeiting and piracy are drastically different things.  You should know not to try and compare them.  I see your strawman, and refuse it.


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## Merlin the Tuna (Apr 10, 2009)

Vyvyan Basterd said:


> I think the simplest point to make is that, assuming the 2,993 downloads of illegal pdfs is accurate, we know with reasonable assurance that those 2,993 people wanted a pdf copy of the PHB2 (if they didn't want it, why did they download it?) but did not pay for it. That is a direct loss. It does not matter if they would have paid for it. Nor does it matter if they paid for it in another format. 2,993 people allegedly stole an illegal copy instead of paying for it. It is cut and dry to me.



Except WotC didn't actually _lose_ anything.  Whether 12 people or 1200 people download a PDF makes no direct impact on their bottom line.  Such is the nature of the digital media.  When dealing with digital piracy, ultimately we're talking in terms of opportunity cost.  So we have the following subsets of downloaders.


People who downloaded the PDF and bought the book.
People who downloaded the PDF _instead of_ buying the book.
People who downloaded the PDF but would not have bought the book either way.

Of those sets, the first represent possible profits that were achieved (no opportunity cost), the second represent possible profits that were not achieved (here be opportunity cost), and the third represent profits which were not possible (no opportunity cost).  Those sets obviously aren't going to consist of equal numbers, but only the second represents a missing profit -- which again, isn't attainable at the moment anyway since the book isn't available.  So they're not even a _present_ opportunity cost.

Downloading a PDF is not tantamount to stealing a physical book.  That isn't to say that the former is something to be endorsed, but you're very obviously miscoloring the situation if you fall into the trap of "You wouldn't steal a car..."


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## Jraynack (Apr 10, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> I put that pdf on a website.  It's probably the most insanely useful thing in all of existance.  _I tell only my group._
> 
> _And now things get tricky._  Take any of the above examples regarding the pdf or pdfs and add "Other people find out about it and download it as well."
> 
> Am I a nasty, dirty pirate?




Yes.

As a small publisher, I too recently found my work on scribd.  To be frank, I don't mind our customers sharing our products around the game table (preferably in a printed format), but when someone puts it on the net for free - that takes potential money right out of our pocket.

As a small publisher, a good selling .pdf sale for us is 150-250 copies in the first month or so, but I was disgusted to find that nearly 1,300 people either viewed or downloaded the product for free (more than any one individual product sale in our 5 years of publishing).

It is like going to work, working hard that day, and your boss telling you you're not getting paid.  Unlike a WotC employee, I do not get paid until I sell my product.  And if they don't sell products, they fire employees.

If people LOVE our products so much, then please tell your friends to invest in our company by paying the $4.00-$7.00 dollars to encourage us to make more of the same and to continue to do what we do.

If I lived in a society that I didn't have to pay for food or a car payment, house, etc. I wouldn't mind people downloading our products for free, but since people who buy our products need money for other things, so do we.

I mainly got into publishing for love of the game, but I do personally invest my time, work, and money in each of our products (I also sometimes get burned out).

What I think is really disparaging about the whole thing is WotC even reduced the costs of their .pdfs with the launch of 4th Edition instead of pricing them, as they did before, as the same cost as a printed book.  It is just a slap in the face.

As for the minor argument, I was a minor too - before file sharing and the internet - I saved my hard earned money (working at Dairy Queen, allowance, odd jobs, etc.) to get the D&D books I loved.  It is called learning responsibility and managing your priorities.  After all, I did not get all the books I wanted.

More importantly, I did share with friends (either their books or mine), and did borrow from the library D&D books I fortunately found there, but in the end - I had to give them back.  And if I lost a book or did not return it (either to the library or my friend), I had to pay a fee or buy the book.  That is something that you can't do with a file share - return it.

If you love a .pdf and want to share it - print it out and keep it around the table like any other book or better yet, buy a copy for a friend (if you can afford it).  There is no excuse for illegal file sharing.


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## ProfessorCirno (Apr 10, 2009)

Jraynack said:


> Yes.




_But at what point?_

I understand that the last one IS file sharing, plain and simple, even if it was _unintended_ file sharing at that degree.  But what about all the others?


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## jgbrowning (Apr 10, 2009)

Jraynack said:


> As a small publisher, I too recently found my work on scribd.




As did I. I sent a notice a few days ago and they removed it. Our book had been downloaded over 250 times and viewed over 1200 (if I'm remembering properly), which is just about as many downloads as we've sold as PDF. And  Scribd is only one site. It made me post at my livejournal - _Sometimes I don't like our fans. For every illegal copy of one of our products floating around the web, there is a "fan" who put it there. That's depressing._

joe b.


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## jgbrowning (Apr 10, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> _But at what point?_




The instant you create a copy of the product that doesn't fall under fair use you've committed copyright infringment. It's not "piracy", it's copyright infringement. If you make a copy that is not under fair use, you've infringed.

A general rule of thumb is that the instant that the copyrighted material is in more than a single place at a single time, and in which all the copies are not only in your personal possession is probably the instant where infringement occurs.

joe b.


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## Grazzt (Apr 10, 2009)

jgbrowning said:


> As did I. I sent a notice a few days ago and they removed it. Our book had been downloaded over 250 times and viewed over 1200 (if I'm remembering properly), which is just about as many downloads as we've sold as PDF. And  Scribd is only one site. It made me post at my livejournal - _Sometimes I don't like our fans. For every illegal copy of one of our products floating around the web, there is a "fan" who put it there. That's depressing._
> 
> joe b.




Havent checked Scribd, but I remember seeing a lot of our Necromancer Games stuff floating around the torrent sites and newsgroups. (Bill and I found 'em several years ago)


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## jgbrowning (Apr 10, 2009)

Grazzt said:


> Havent checked Scribd, but I remember seeing a lot of our Necromancer Games stuff floating around the torrent sites and newsgroups. (Bill and I found 'em several years ago)




You should probably check. They make you jump through hoops to remove the material, but they do remove it.

I stumbled upon it after reading about JK Rowling's issue with the site.

joe b.


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## CapnZapp (Apr 10, 2009)

Jraynack said:


> Yes.



I am sorry, but you must make a choice:

Either accept that sharing of digital files are one of the most inherently valuable aspects of the new technology, as well as the fact that the people you call "pirates" 1) haven't actually stolen anything and 2) most probably you have several friends and acquaintances which will face jail time or economic ruin if you get your wish.

Or, to get what you want, we either need to turn back the clock to the times where sharing information was cumbersome and slow, or we need to accept draconic levels of privacy invasions where everything you do on the Internet is closely monitored and where you no longer are in control of your computer and your browser.



Of course, there is a third option:

Say no to orwellian police states where nine year old kids are sued for millions for sharing their favorite books with others. Accept the wondrous new abilities to share and disseminate information created by new technology. Create new business models that embrace these new capabilities. Cut out middle men (like music record labels). Get your customers to _pay you directly_. Earn more money than in your wildest dreams.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 10, 2009)

That's easily said, but evidently not easily done. 

I hate the idea of restricting a product through artificial measures so it does less than it could. But I also want to have the product in the first place, and if these measures are the only thing people can come up with to ensure they still earn enough money to create more products... I am unhappy, but I'd rather take that than nothing at all.

Maybe subscription services are the way to go. Or maybe they are not, since investing in the software system behind is no less expensive than creating the products you sell...


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## Silverblade The Ench (Apr 10, 2009)

This silliness is why I said elsewhere that it's not theft, it cannot be theft, it's _unauthorized copying_.
It's a huge difference.
if you can pay for a digital item, you should, if you can't...well tough, you are not stealing a real item.

See, in the real world, it's finite. 
3000 books are real objects, they take real wood and ink to make, this world we live on is finite. That is the basis of THEFT, taking real things. and with violence or menaces, it's robbery.
But you could send 1 billion _copies _of them on pdf to everyone on Earth...which is impossible for real items. Thus, it's copying, not theft. If it's theft, then how come I can give a billion copies of them away?  Why shouldn't a perosn who cannot afford a copy, have one? Money is finite, copies are not.

Stop confusing copying with theft, it's wrong and a dirty tactic by the "controllers" (and I don't mean 4th ed, lol)
Our 19th century legal ideas and grubby corporations don't want to grow up and realize this is the 21st century.

And note, I'm an artist, I know folks can copy my stuff, too bloody bad, big deal! compared to robbery at knifepoint, which I have experience of, it's nothing like the same!!

of course people should be paid for their work..within limits. IP and Copyright, as they are currently, are major, dangerous nooses around our necks :/
We desperately need free flowing information and entertainment.
Why?
Free laptops could stop more wars than bombs and be a lot cheaper.
_Ignorance is the root of much of the world's woes_.
etc etc

Selling pdfs of the D&D books, including current ones, at $1 to 5 a pop, rather than the dumb prices they want for the recent items, would net a lot more money and good will.
You'll always get folk copying, tough, too bad! 

Wanna tear yer eyes out so you don't see bad stuff, hm? 
Remove your pituitary gland so you don't get "naughty" thoughts? 
Stuff happens, long as it isn't really bad, tough, get over it.
I'd rather have copying than a police state.
Jeesh.

See what happened ot the record industry when they started suing folk, why Metallica realized legal action made things worse for them...

and here's a thought for ya all...
imagine all the signals flying out of wi fis and other systems.
So, we're broadcasting all our data into space.
Do you really think our copyright means jack squat to the Aliens who may pick it up in centuries to come, eh? Or even out distance ancestors who may pick the signals up as they fly to the star safter we've probably reduced this Earth to a dead mess.
Get real, we've broadcasted our data to space, our notions of controlling _data _are insane 

Adding a note on pdfs that they were made by a real person, maybe with pictures of the writers etc, would do a lot more good than this legal lunacy which has only caused more ill will.
Why? make folk realize that *people* make content, and should be respected, and thus paid, when you are able to!
People have no respect for faceless corporations.

I love D&D, I buy D&D stuff, I'm happy to support the hobby I love os much. I respect the D&D designers and creators out there, I do not respect WOTC, and I do not believe in the damnable copyright mania.

I have copies of thousands of books and works of art...in my head. Nobody has any right or claim on those. Same damn thing. Accept this and move on.


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## JohnRTroy (Apr 10, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> Am I a nasty, dirty pirate?
> 
> Counterfeiting and piracy are drastically different things.  You should know not to try and compare them.  I see your strawman, and refuse it.




What I see as the straw man is the people parrotting "you can't stop piracy no matter how hard you try".  Well, that can be applied to everything.  Counterfeiting, like piracy, causes financial damage, it's just the government and citizens are the victims rather than a corporation or individual.  Digital Piracy is the only crime I see where people want the victims to "ignore it".

If you believe you have the right to share a book amongst people, there are ways to do it ethically that mimic the old ways.

Let them view your screen, or a big monitor or projector.  A physical book can only occupy a certain amount of space.  Or, give them access to your computer via VNC or something that allows viewing but not copying when you're in the same location (over a LAN).  But don't copy.  That's the key thing.  If you truly want to lend a person your book, delete your copy on your disk, and accept that (a) the person might never give it back, same as a book and (b) the person could upload it, putting you at risk.



CapnZapp said:


> Or, to get what you want, we either need to turn back the clock to the times where sharing information was cumbersome and slow, or we need to accept draconic levels of privacy invasions where everything you do on the Internet is closely monitored and where you no longer are in control of your computer and your browser.
> 
> Say no to orwellian police states where nine year old kids are sued for millions for sharing their favorite books with others. Accept the wondrous new abilities to share and disseminate information created by new technology. Create new business models that embrace these new capabilities. Cut out middle men (like music record labels). Get your customers to _pay you directly_. Earn more money than in your wildest dreams.




Privacy is going to be hard to come by in the new age, especially with people twittering and blogging and making public statements.  

Your last statement is flawed.  Economic realities take over.  Sharing is no good if it drives the business you patronize out.  It's easy to say "create new business models" when it's not your job on the line.  The so-called "long tail" is not very lucrative, unless you are a huge aggregator.  I think the current recession is going to be a wake up call.  You're already seeing people change their models--newspapers want to start getting people to pay for content again.  



> As for the minor argument, I was a minor too - before file sharing and the internet - I saved my hard earned money (working at Dairy Queen, allowance, odd jobs, etc.) to get the D&D books I loved. It is called learning responsibility and managing your priorities. After all, I did not get all the books I wanted.




Exactly, nobody is learning to "do without".  Entertainment is much higher on the scale of the "hierarchy of needs".  I'm afraid those who endorse piracy are not learning to do without or sacrifice.  There are many legal ways of getting entertainment if you are not wealthy.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> That's easily said, but evidently not easily done.
> 
> I hate the idea of restricting a product through artificial measures so it does less than it could. But I also want to have the product in the first place, and if these measures are the only thing people can come up with to ensure they still earn enough money to create more products... I am unhappy, but I'd rather take that than nothing at all.
> 
> Maybe subscription services are the way to go. Or maybe they are not, since investing in the software system behind is no less expensive than creating the products you sell...




I dislike DRM myself, but like locks, they are there to keep the honest people honest.  Taking away locks would not be a good thing.  

That's what I like about Watermarking.  Wizards was able to find the idiots who posted the items and hopefully punish them.

I've become a little cynical--but I think there are two components to enforcing laws.  Fear, and Guilt/Ethics.  The former is more important than the latter.  Some people might be tempted to smoke pot or patronize a prostitute or go over the speed limit based on their own moral standards, but they have enough fear to not do it because if they get caught, it would mean very bad things.  

What I'd like to see is the criminalization of piracy and/or some sort of tort reform on it.  You make it a crime, and if piracy is detected the state gives the person a ticket.  There's a maximum penalty of say, $5000.00, and perhaps some mild jail time (30-90 days).   You make it like traffic tickets so you get it as soon as its detected.  Most people will pay the fees, and it teaches the young people quickly not to do it, because the parents will be BS and take Internet privileges away, and everybody is mostly scared of going to jail.  

This would also reduce the torts--since then companies would be able to save their lawsuits for the biggest and boldest offenders.  If you took away the discrepancy of people suing for millions of dollars in damages against the 15 year old, and replaced it with the system above, I think most people would accept it.


----------



## ProfessorCirno (Apr 10, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> What I see as the straw man is the people parrotting "you can't stop piracy no matter how hard you try".  Well, that can be applied to everything.  Counterfeiting, like piracy, causes financial damage, it's just the government and citizens are the victims rather than a corporation or individual.  Digital Piracy is the only crime I see where people want the victims to "ignore it".




I'm sorry you feel that way.  Nonetheless, piracy is not the same as counterfeiting.  It's simply not comparable.  And again, I refuse to lower to your strawman.

As for the victims, HI!  I work with academia.  Every time I or anyone I work with write *anything* *at all* we can fully expect it to be spread widely anywhere in the world for absolutely free.  And you know what?  All of us.  *All* *of us*.  Wouldn't have it _any_ other way.


----------



## xechnao (Apr 10, 2009)

Jraynack said:


> Yes.
> 
> As a small publisher, I too recently found my work on scribd. To be frank, I don't mind our customers sharing our products around the game table (preferably in a printed format), but when someone puts it on the net for free - that takes potential money right out of our pocket.
> 
> ...




Such the nature of digital distribution: it gives you the advantage of no printing and distribution costs but makes you more vulnerable to customer choice. If it were not for the internet I doubt there would have been the 13025 publishers hosted on drivethrurpg.com in the market with their products.
But among this vast offer, the customers that really want your product are considerable less. Customers also need considerably more browsing time. This is why they download pirated copies I guess: to try and figure out most they can about the products.


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## JohnRTroy (Apr 10, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> I'm sorry you feel that way.  Nonetheless, piracy is not the same as counterfeiting.  It's simply not comparable.  And again, I refuse to lower to your strawman.
> 
> As for the victims, HI!  I work with academia.  Every time I or anyone I work with write *anything* *at all* we can fully expect it to be spread widely anywhere in the world for absolutely free.  And you know what?  All of us.  *All* *of us*.  Wouldn't have it _any_ other way.




Okay, then explain to me why it's a straw man argument.  If it is a straw man it should easily be defeatable and knocked down.  Saying "it's a straw man" is in itself, another straw man argument, it's an attempt to ignore it and instead make an ad hominem attack.  I made a basic analogy that people keep saying "piracy can't be stopped" as an excuse, but technically "counterfeiting can't be stopped" is another statement, yet will still try to stop it.  You can defend piracy in other aspects, but the whole "piracy can't be stopped" is usually meant to end with "so why bother trying".  Both are crimes.  Both hurt people.  

As far as academia goes--that's your CHOICE, to be in academia.  I don't have a problem with people sharing because they want to.  If you want to give away your information, that's your business.  It doesn't mean others should.  The customer buys the product, buys an alternative, or goes without.  Piracy is not an acceptable option.


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## jasin (Apr 10, 2009)

Jraynack said:


> As a small publisher, I too recently found my work on scribd.  To be frank, I don't mind our customers sharing our products around the game table (preferably in a printed format), but when someone puts it on the net for free - that takes potential money right out of our pocket.
> 
> As a small publisher, a good selling .pdf sale for us is 150-250 copies in the first month or so, but I was disgusted to find that nearly 1,300 people either viewed or downloaded the product for free (more than any one individual product sale in our 5 years of publishing).



Out of 1,300, how many didn't buy the product but would have if it wasn't  illegally available for free?

Out of 1,300, how many bought the product but wouldn't have if it wasn't  illegally available for free?

Without some credible information about this, I don't think it's possible to judge whether illegal file sharing earned you money or cost you money.

Has any serious research been done on this subject?


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## JohnRTroy (Apr 10, 2009)

One of the cases was updated...



> UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
> FOR THE United States District Court for the Western District of Washington
> 
> Wizards of the Coast LLC
> ...


----------



## jgbrowning (Apr 10, 2009)

CapnZapp said:


> I am sorry, but you must make a choice:
> 
> Either accept that sharing of digital files are one of the most inherently valuable aspects of the new technology, as well as the fact that the people you call "pirates" 1) haven't actually stolen anything




Huh? Of course they haven't "stolen" anything, but they have copyright infringed. Theft is different from copyright infringement.

joe b.


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## EarthSeraphEdna (Apr 10, 2009)

Defendant Osmeña here. 16, male, Philippines. I wonder, do WotC, Hasbro, or any of their attorneys know that they're suing the hell out of a minor in the Philippines? Without providing him with any way of properly comprehending the exact details of the case report and the summons given to him? All in all, along with the fact that they're trying to get the defendants (fans of the game) to *stop playing D&D altogether*, would _mala fides_ not be out of the question here?


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## jgbrowning (Apr 10, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> As for the victims, HI!  I work with academia.  Every time I or anyone I work with write *anything* *at all* we can fully expect it to be spread widely anywhere in the world for absolutely free.  And you know what?  All of us.  *All* *of us*.  Wouldn't have it _any_ other way.




Would you feel a victim were someone to remove your name from a work you did for academia and replace it with their own? Do you have an expectation of proper accreditation of the source of one of your works? Why cannot one simply put one's name in the place of others' names?

What laws do you have to protect your work were someone to lock-stock-and barrel claim what you have written as their work? Why are those laws more important than the exclusive right of distribution provided by copyright law?

I feel a victim when someone decides they have the right of distribution of one of our properly accredited products when I have not expressly given them that right just like I would assume you would feel the victim where someone to decide to replace your name with theirs as the author of an academic text.

And that product that I produced and was taken down at scribd? The guy who put it up changed the content, claimed right of copyright to my product by making it available at that site and then declared that the product was under a creative commons license and therefore saying anyone could use it under that creative commons. Nice guy, huh?

joe b.


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## malraux (Apr 10, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> Okay, then explain to me why it's a straw man argument.  If it is a straw man it should easily be defeatable and knocked down.  Saying "it's a straw man" is in itself, another straw man argument, it's an attempt to ignore it and instead make an ad hominem attack.  I made a basic analogy that people keep saying "piracy can't be stopped" as an excuse, but technically "counterfeiting can't be stopped" is another statement, yet will still try to stop it.  You can defend piracy in other aspects, but the whole "piracy can't be stopped" is usually meant to end with "so why bother trying".  Both are crimes.  Both hurt people.



The difference is that increasing enforcement can reduce the number of counterfeiters and the scale of their operation.  Increasing enforcement against digital piracy might decrease the number of people willing to crack DRM, scan books, re-encode files, etc, but, because it only takes one person to do it, won't reduce the number of people gaining access to the work illegally.  I guess reducing the number of people involved in the original distribution of pirated works is good, but because it won't affect the number of people gaining access to the work, it is unlike the case of counterfeiting.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I hate the idea of restricting a product through artificial measures so it does less than it could. But I also want to have the product in the first place, and if these measures are the only thing people can come up with to ensure they still earn enough money to create more products... I am unhappy, but I'd rather take that than nothing at all.




Personally, I don't see much unethical (regardless of legality) in purchasing a work legitimately, then grabbing the cracked/unDRMed work from the pirate sites.  Hacks that remove the requirement to keep the CD in the drive in games, for example, are really hard to argue that its unethical to use.


----------



## JohnRTroy (Apr 10, 2009)

malraux said:


> The difference is that increasing enforcement can reduce the number of counterfeiters and the scale of their operation.  Increasing enforcement against digital piracy might decrease the number of people willing to crack DRM, scan books, re-encode files, etc, but, because it only takes one person to do it, won't reduce the number of people gaining access to the work illegally.  I guess reducing the number of people involved in the original distribution of pirated works is good, but because it won't affect the number of people gaining access to the work, it is unlike the case of counterfeiting.




Well, since it can be debated like this it's by no means a strong man.  Piracy and Counterfeiting are both criminal acts, and federal agencies get involved in them.  So I can't assume this is a straw man argument.  It still damages both parties.  

It's an interesting point, but because piracy can be reduced it is worth fighting.  Watermarking, DRM, and others techniques are ways in which it can be done.  I just hate the "defeatist attitude" people who want to excuse piracy make.  Anti-Piracy techniques keep the honest honest, just like door locks.  

Simple point--If you make it easy to pirate, more people will.


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## Treebore (Apr 10, 2009)

"Fair Use" needs to be updated. I do a lot of on line gaming. In face to face you can pass the book around, but online you can only share by copy/pasting and sending it. It is clear that when we are done with the game we are to delete everything we are given for our characters from rule books we don't own, but its the closest we can get to "sharing" the book like we do at face to face tables.

So it would be nice if "fair use" would get updated to reflect a policy for sharing pieces/parts via the internet, especially since it involves "copies" of material from a book. We follow the spirit of fair use, but I would feel more comfortable if the written law reflected it. As it is we are probably in technical violation of it. Things like this happen all the time, and unfortunately laws often don't get updated to adapt to technology changes until after court cases occur.


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## Hawkwind (Apr 10, 2009)

I think that rpg publishers should see pdf  file sharing not as lost income but as free viral advertising. WOTC have got and continue to via the DDI a lot of money of me thanks to me seeing the prerelease copies of the core books. I buy a lot of actual books most months and i cant remember the last book i brought without seeing the pdf first. I suspect i am not alone in this.  if i was a publisher i would worried he no one was pirating my books , you cant find some mongoose stuff pirated for love nor money.


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## Umbran (Apr 10, 2009)

Treebore said:


> So it would be nice if "fair use" would get updated to reflect a policy for sharing pieces/parts via the internet, especially since it involves "copies" of material from a book. We follow the spirit of fair use, but I would feel more comfortable if the written law reflected it.




I think the definition is still fairly sound - bu the technology to support that definition has not yet been built.

Imagine you have a copyrighted file, and your computer had a function that understood the concept, and would help you to manage fair use copying - it simulates handing around the file by allowing you to copy and send an acceptably sized portion that deletes itself at the end of a reasonable time?  Make it part of an e-reader, build a "friends list" into it....


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## thelettuceman (Apr 10, 2009)

I think a lot of people are just plain pissed off that downloading a pirated copy of WHATEVER is so easy.

Then again, there's nothing to stop me from going into a book store (particularly bigger ones that encourage you to sit down and read), flip through a rules book and transcribe what I want from it into a notebook.  No one would look at me twice, and no one would care that I'm doing it to bring additional materials to my game.  

Oh wait.  Better hoist the colors.  I'm a pirate.


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## Treebore (Apr 10, 2009)

Umbran said:


> I think the definition is still fairly sound - bu the technology to support that definition has not yet been built.
> 
> Imagine you have a copyrighted file, and your computer had a function that understood the concept, and would help you to manage fair use copying - it simulates handing around the file by allowing you to copy and send an acceptably sized portion that deletes itself at the end of a reasonable time?  Make it part of an e-reader, build a "friends list" into it....





That is one sweet idea, and seems extremely doable.


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## malraux (Apr 10, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> Piracy and Counterfeiting are both criminal acts, and federal agencies get involved in them.




In most of these piracy cases, no its not a criminal act.  Its a civil issue.  Again two separate things.


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## malraux (Apr 10, 2009)

Treebore said:


> That is one sweet idea, and seems extremely doable.




Well, no.  First, there's the analog hole, which has varying degrees of efficacy.  In addition, ultimately, whatever the thing is, it must eventually be decrypted inside the computer.  At that point, some ingenious hacker will figure out how to get at that data.  The only way to stop that is to make it so that no unauthorized (by the computer maker, not the actual owner of the machine) software will be allowed to run.  And even then, the hacks around for xbox, playstation and wii all show even that doesn't work.


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## JohnRTroy (Apr 10, 2009)

malraux said:


> In most of these piracy cases, no its not a criminal act.  Its a civil issue.  Again two separate things.




At least in the US, it is no longer "just a tort".

NET Act: 17 U.S.C. and 18 U.S.C. as amended (redlined)

You can actually go to jail for copyright infringement, should the Federal Government get involved.


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## malraux (Apr 10, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> At least in the US, it is no longer "just a tort".
> 
> NET Act: 17 U.S.C. and 18 U.S.C. as amended (redlined)
> 
> You can actually go to jail for copyright infringement, should the Federal Government get involved.




There's still a huge difference between the two.  In counterfeiting of money, its basically just the federal government who is going to bring suit.  In cases of copyright infringement, you're going to see primarily civil action, with the fedgov holding criminal action only for the organized groups.


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## thormagni (Apr 10, 2009)

jgbrowning said:


> It made me post at my livejournal - _Sometimes I don't like our fans. For every illegal copy of one of our products floating around the web, there is a "fan" who put it there. That's depressing._




It is an interesting dilemma and not an unusual one, unfortunately. Apparently, several years back, the Miami Herald decided to aggressively go after the "pirates" who were posting Dave Barry columns on newsgroups, as soon as they were published. The trail led to a 14-year-old in the Midwest who was just a huge Barry fan, and wanted to share his favorite author's work with anyone and everyone. 

Clay Shirky, on his blog described the situation:


> One of the people I was hanging around with online back then was Gordy Thompson, who managed internet services at the New York Times. I remember Thompson saying something to the effect of “When a 14 year old kid can blow up your business in his spare time, not because he hates you but because he loves you, then you got a problem.” Shirky's blog post




Sure, there are some people engaged in copyright violations who want to hurt a given business. But most people who illegaly spread and download intellectual property are fans. In addition to being "thieves," they are consumers and purchasers and people who are evangelically converting other people to the given property, making new fans who will then consume and purchase in turn. 

Which puts a business in the unenviable position of thinking they have to crack down on their biggest fans because those fans are "costing them sales." 

Rather than being defeatist to give up on hunting down these "pirates," it is actually self-defeating to pursue them. It has been proven in cases studies by people much smarter than me that providing free digital copies of your work actually leads to more real sales. I believe it was Cory Doctorow who pointed out that you really have a problem when nobody loves your work enough to spread it around.

Clearly, it is a counter-intuitive concept. And businesses are completely within their rights to pursue their business interests however they want and wherever they think they will lead. But as I'm a fan of RPGs and of RPG PDFs, I wish companies would wake up to the new reality.

What would I do, if I were in charge for a day? Make your own case study. I'd slap a big "promotional material" watermark on a bunch of PDFs and float them in the pirate channels. Provide an easy in-copy link where someone can either buy a reasonably priced, non-promotional-watermarked PDF or buy a print copy on your Web site. And then see what happens. 

Of course, I work in the newspaper business. So what do I know?


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## Treebore (Apr 10, 2009)

malraux said:


> Well, no.  First, there's the analog hole, which has varying degrees of efficacy.  In addition, ultimately, whatever the thing is, it must eventually be decrypted inside the computer.  At that point, some ingenious hacker will figure out how to get at that data.  The only way to stop that is to make it so that no unauthorized (by the computer maker, not the actual owner of the machine) software will be allowed to run.  And even then, the hacks around for xbox, playstation and wii all show even that doesn't work.





I am not worried about being hacked, as long as my anti hacking software works, I am more interested in the facilitation of proper "fair use" over the internet.


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## pedr (Apr 10, 2009)

I think it's been mentioned somewhere in these sprawling discussions, but Greg Stolze's approach is interesting: supplements for his RPG 'REIGN' are made available for free download from his website - once he's received $1,000 for them. So people who know that they want the material can choose to speed its release by paying, or can wait and get it for free. There is an incentive to pay: I think that if the 'ransom' isn't met within a certain timeframe the material isn't released (and the people who paid/pledged don't have to pay/get their money back). But once the ransom is met, the material is available for everyone who wants it.

He's also released a compilation book, so people who want hard-copies of material can buy that instead (or as well). 

Now, I imagine that this system would be too limited to sustain a company the size of WotC, but it's certianly food for thought.


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## malraux (Apr 10, 2009)

Treebore said:


> I am not worried about being hacked, as long as my anti hacking software works, I am more interested in the facilitation of proper "fair use" over the internet.




I think you misunderstand.  It's not about someone hacking your machine to get at the data, its about how someone, on their own computer, will always be able to circumvent the fair use restrictions.


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## ProfessorCirno (Apr 10, 2009)

jgbrowning said:


> Would you feel a victim were someone to remove your name from a work you did for academia and replace it with their own? Do you have an expectation of proper accreditation of the source of one of your works? Why cannot one simply put one's name in the place of others' names?




Again, there is a difference between piracy and *identity theft*.

When someone pirates your goods, _your name is still on them_.  They are still spreading your works.  What you are suggesting is drastically different from that.


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## Treebore (Apr 10, 2009)

malraux said:


> I think you misunderstand.  It's not about someone hacking your machine to get at the data, its about how someone, on their own computer, will always be able to circumvent the fair use restrictions.





Well as long as it proves I follow the "fair use" laws and protects me, I don't care what someone else does.


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## jgbrowning (Apr 10, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> Again, there is a difference between piracy and *identity theft*.




No, there's a difference between *copyright infringement *and identity theft.

What I described (someone placing their name on someone else's academic work and then distributing that work - even for free) isn't identity theft, it's plagiarism. They're not pretending to be someone else, they're claiming they have the right to repeat that text verbatim as if they were the copyright owner just like someone who put's up one of my products for distribution claims to have my copyright to distribute my products.

They're both copyright issues. One would have to rely upon copyright to prove that one was the actual creator of the work, just like I have to rely upon copyright to prove that I have the exclusive right of world-wide distribution.

The copyright laws protecting creators from plagiarism (having someone else claim your work as theirs) are the same laws that allow creators to determine the distribution of their works, not just the proper identification of the creator of the work.

In modern times, the only legal reason one can claim credit for an idea and prove ownership of an idea is copyright. Along with ownership and credit comes exclusive distribution.

joe b.


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## Treebore (Apr 10, 2009)

jgbrowning said:


> No, there's a difference between *copyright infringement *and identity theft.
> 
> What I described (someone placing their name on someone else's academic work and then distributing that work - even for free) isn't identity theft, it's plagiarism. They're not pretending to be someone else, they're claiming they have the right to repeat that text verbatim as if they were the copyright owner just like someone who put's up one of my products for distribution claims to have my copyright to distribute my products.
> 
> ...




Yep, and if you want to know even more than what Joe talks about read the laws for yourself:

U.S. Copyright Office

They even start making sense after about the 5th time reading them.


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## jgbrowning (Apr 10, 2009)

thormagni said:


> Clearly, it is a counter-intuitive concept. And businesses are completely within their rights to pursue their business interests however they want and wherever they think they will lead. But as I'm a fan of RPGs and of RPG PDFs, I wish companies would wake up to the new reality.




The real reality is that you don't have the right to benefit me without my explicit permission. The issues is not one of benefit or harm, it is of rights and who makes the decisions concerning the use and distribution of a produced product.

For example, if you don't have the owners explicit permission, it is illegal for you to renovate someone's house even if what you think you are doing is improving the value of the house. You don't have that right. Only the owner of the house does.



> What would I do, if I were in charge for a day? Make your own case study. I'd slap a big "promotional material" watermark on a bunch of PDFs and float them in the pirate channels. Provide an easy in-copy link where someone can either buy a reasonably priced, non-promotional-watermarked PDF or buy a print copy on your Web site. And then see what happens.
> 
> Of course, I work in the newspaper business. So what do I know?




I've been selling PDFs since 2003. I understand the benfit of the digital medium. I understand the potential benefits of copyright infringment to my business, but it is still illegal and

*tremendously*

*disrespectful*

because someone's telling me that they don't give a damn about my rights and that their desires about what they want to do are more important than my desires, as creator and copyright holder of the work.

Also, anyone claiming that one of my works is under creative commons license isn't "mislead" - they know what they're doing and choose to be as big a jerk as possible about it.

joe b.


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## MadLordOfMilk (Apr 10, 2009)

Glyfair said:


> From the documents it is clear that the main argument will point to the fact that the watermarks with their name on it were removed.  It shows they were trying to hide their identity.  Someone who stole it from them would have little reason to do that.



Well, actually, having a watermark with some arbitrary name and order # on a PDF you ripped off from someone would be kind of annoying... I could completely understand someone removing it if only for aesthetic reasons. Plus, in that position, I'd remove it just to try and keep the poor guy from getting nailed for it, but obviously not everyone would do that.


----------



## darjr (Apr 10, 2009)

Treebore said:


> That is one sweet idea, and seems extremely doable.




Egads! No.

Imagine your government usurps the controls to what is acceptable. Or a megacorp decides that certain types of sharing, like reviews, are not acceptable.

This kind of control sounds like a very bad idea to me.


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## Jraynack (Apr 10, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> _But at what point?_
> 
> I understand that the last one IS file sharing, plain and simple, even if it was _unintended_ file sharing at that degree.  But what about all the others?




That is the reason why, I quoted you on the last point.  Anytime you put something on the web, it has a potential to become file sharing.

For instance, I wanted some WotC .pdfs on my iPod Touch.  I did not pay for the full version of an APP that allows me to do it by posting it to a private, protected server.  I chose the free version to try it out.  The free version uses a public server, therefore I DID NOT put those .pdfs on there because of the possibility of them being illegally downloaded.  I did put things on it, however, that other companies were distributing for free.

Which, again, we put out free products and if they are free, I don't care how many times or where, or who downloads them.



CapnZapp said:


> I am sorry, but you must make a choice:
> 
> Either accept that sharing of digital files are one of the most inherently valuable aspects of the new technology, as well as the fact that the people you call "pirates" 1) haven't actually stolen anything and 2) most probably you have several friends and acquaintances which will face jail time or economic ruin if you get your wish.




No, I do not have to make a choice. 1) I know it comes with the territory, but it does not mean I have to like it. 2) I do have friends that pirate and I will not rat on them.  Does it mean I like it or accept it? No, I take them, as a whole, rather than judge them by an incident (unless that incident defines them).  But if they get caught and carted away to jail, that was their decision.  I would be sorry for them, and support them when they get out, but it doesn't change the fact what they did was illegal.



CapnZapp said:


> Of course, there is a third option:
> 
> Say no to orwellian police states where nine year old kids are sued for millions for sharing their favorite books with others.




I keep on hearing police state and George Orwell.  I would like to stop those people right now and tell them, "Take a break from the forum, actually read his books, fully digest them, and then come back for a real conversation."

Some people confuse file sharing with censorship or limiting personal liberty, and it is not.  Believe it or not, I am an idealist (or else I wouldn't be a .pdf publisher).



jasin said:


> Out of 1,300, how many didn't buy the product but would have if it wasn't  illegally available for free?
> 
> Out of 1,300, how many bought the product but wouldn't have if it wasn't  illegally available for free?
> 
> ...




Serious research, no.   It is not needed cause I have the answer, and it took me a second to collect the data.  The majority of our sales for that particular product took place in the first four to five weeks - around 240.  According to the date it was made available on the file share until today, we sold around 30 more.

To be clear, I never said it cost us money - if you read my post, I said potential money.  There is a difference.  But, it was one of our best sellers out of the gate, enough so, it did get recognition to be put up into a file share along with several WoTC books.

I did joke with my friends, "That is how I know I hit the big time, my product was file shared!"

I recognize that the person who did it was probably a fan, but if he knew how hard I worked on that project for the little money I got in return, I am sure he wouldn't have done it.  And it wasn't like I was charging an arm and a leg ($3.95), but I might consider raising my prices on future products to offset what I might potentially loose to file sharing.

Now, if our Feudal Lords setting takes off when it is released due to the file sharing of that small product, than I will stand corrected and might change the way I do business.  But, as I am an idealist, I am also a realist.  There are a lot more people who will download something for free than people who will download it and then say, "Hey, I like this - I think I will buy it eventhough I have a free, illegally downloaded copy."

Look, I am not a hard a**.  If you bought the Player's Handbook and wanted a .pdf copy and you downloaded a from a file share, that is one thing.  But, downloading it for free with no intention to buy a copy or putting it up so others (and I mean more than just your friends; because thinking that only your friends will download it is simply naive) might download it without buying it is wrong.

And yes, I know what I just said is a little hippocritical and causes a bit of a conundrum ("How can you download it if the guy you say was wrong put it up in the first place, blah, blah, blah), but we are all human and that is exactly what humans are. 

Oh, one last thing about the academia bit, because I worked a little in that field.  Besides being the nature of the field, it is true that your work is distributed freely, but you were paid by the institution while writing the paper or performing experiments.  And, most often, you (and I mean you in general) get pressure from the higher ups to consistantly produce material.  You can't just sit back and teach classes all day.

The issue is not wholly about distribution (or even copyright), the issue is payment for a job/service/product, etc.  You still got paid and, if the paper was good, increased your job security, chance for a Nobel prize, or spots on the History channel or Discovery for one or two of their pretty specials (all equates to money in one form or another).  So, it is slightly different than file sharing something that was intended for purchase and something that was not.


----------



## Jraynack (Apr 10, 2009)

jgbrowning said:


> Also, anyone claiming that one of my works is under creative commons license isn't "mislead" - they know what they're doing and choose to be as big a jerk as possible about it.
> 
> joe b.




Especially, if I clearly mark it in the credits page:

"All Alea characters, character names, and the distinctive likenesses
thereof are trademarks owned by Alea Publishing Group.
This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United
States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the
material or artwork contained herein is prohibited
without the express written permission of
Alea Publishing Group.

©2008 Alea Publishing Group
All rights reserved.
Made in the U.S.A.

Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution
of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright
infringement, including infringement without monetary
gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to
5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000."​


----------



## thormagni (Apr 10, 2009)

jgbrowning said:


> The real reality is that you don't have the right to benefit me without my explicit permission.




Clearly, that is absolutely correct. It is also the reality that with a 15 minute effort, anyone can find free copies of almost any piece of intellectual property they want -- books, movies, news stories, music, games, etc., etc. 

I cannot conceive of a future where that reality changes, unless the Internet goes away completely or is so radically changed that freedom is completely curtailed online. 

Every company and business owner has the right and freedom to approach this "problem" how they wish. My wish is simply that more companies realized that the genie is out of the bottle. The horse has left the barn. Godzilla is stomping Tokyo. And I wish the companies I respect and whose products I enjoy would figure out a way to deal with that rampaging genie/horse/giant flaming lizards in a way that benefits them and the consumer.

But you are absolutely correct. Nobody can or should force anyone to make a decision they don't want. And business owners are completely free to decide how or even if they want to deal with that rampage.


----------



## sckeener (Apr 14, 2009)

Deset Gled said:


> Or someone could just buy a hard copy of the book and scan it.
> 
> It wouldn't be perfect, but there would be zero chance of traceability.  With some of the higher end vision software these days, you could probably even get a decent percentage of the text recognized to be searchable.  If someone cared enough, they could manually correct errors and re-proof the whole book.




Scanners today can do very good scans and the OCRed text is good enough for searching.  I do it with my books and magazines.

I even talked to my IP lawyers before doing it.  They basically said as long as I have a receipt, I'm good for scanning my own books.  

I started doing it during my divorce when I needed to reduce space in my temporary apartment.  I was able to store my books and magazines in my storage facility while still having them at my finger tips.  It was wonderful and I've kept doing it.


----------



## Imban (Apr 15, 2009)

jgbrowning> While I can see where you're coming from, I also believe that any content creator who attempts to bury and destroy his work despite demand for it is a jerk, and thus I don't care one whit for any disrespect I do him, even if I was a fan before he became a jerk.

But I've been in the awkward position of infringing the copyright of a work by someone I *know and talk to regularly* before because the distributor refused to sell me a copy under anything even approaching reasonable terms, so that might have altered my perception.

So yeah, I can understand that you might not think people stealing your work is cool. But while the law gives you that right in all cases, I've personally seen times where exercising it makes you a jerk.

(I'd guess here my litmus test would be expecting to sell my exclusively online gaming group 10 copies of any book we planned on using. By and large RPG books are not priced for that being even remotely a reasonable expectation.)


----------



## JohnRTroy (Aug 28, 2009)

*An Update on This Legal Action*

Bumping this thread up.

I have attached updated Zip files of the PDFs for this case.  Here's a quick status summary report.

Thomas Patrick Nolan is taking it to trial, and representing himself Pro Se.  The trial should come up in Summer/Fall, 2010.  No word on the other guy.

Arthur Le who also represented himself Pro Se agreed to the penalty of $100,000.00.  I think the co-consipirator has been declared "in default" because he has not responded.

The guys from Poland, no significant progress...so I didn't attach any documents for them.


----------



## Voadam (Aug 28, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> agreed to the penalty of $100,000.00.




Wow.


----------



## Obryn (Aug 28, 2009)

Thanks for the updates - I was curious!

Why the heck aren't any of these people getting in touch with lawyers?!  Come on, folks!

-O


----------



## Imban (Aug 28, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> No word on the other guy.




Last time I asked, which was a month or so ago, he still doesn't really seem to care about it. Which just about fits what the legal document you just posted says, so...


----------



## GMforPowergamers (Aug 28, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> Arthur Le who also represented himself Pro Se agreed to the penalty of $100,000.00.






Voadam said:


> Wow.




um...who agrees to $100,000 ?? I mean really that is more then I make in 2 years...

 is this guy loaded? I can see the court handing down something like this, but why not negotiate down to a more resnable number???


----------



## JohnRTroy (Aug 28, 2009)

Voadam said:


> Wow.




Well, he said he was a college student and both parents were unemployed.  Let's not assume his plea and the decision suddenly means he'll have to pay the entire $100,000.00.  I think it's up to WoTC to decide that.  

Plus I think WoTC is less likely to care about the money so much as the agreement of his to never violate copyright again.  The "permanent injunction" is useful for several reasons.  

Regarding lawyers, that is an expensive proposition.  I think a good defense could cost in the upper 5 or low six figures.


----------



## malraux (Aug 28, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> Well, he said he was a college student and both parents were unemployed.  Let's not assume his plea and the decision suddenly means he'll have to pay the entire $100,000.00.  I think it's up to WoTC to decide that.
> 
> Plus I think WoTC is less likely to care about the money so much as the agreement of his to never violate copyright again.  The "permanent injunction" is useful for several reasons.
> 
> Regarding lawyers, that is an expensive proposition.  I think a good defense could cost in the upper 5 or low six figures.




Out of question, would a bankruptcy void the settlement?  If he has no way to pay the money back, then it really doesn't matter how much the settlement is for.


----------



## JohnRTroy (Aug 28, 2009)

malraux said:


> Out of question, would a bankruptcy void the settlement?  If he has no way to pay the money back, then it really doesn't matter how much the settlement is for.




I honestly don't know.  This is something for a lawyer--I assume bankruptcy would only allow so much protection, otherwise rich people might use that as an excuse as well as poor to get out of a court order.

I think it's up to WoTC--note that WoTC was not asking for legal fees.  I wish I knew more about infringement--I think it's up to WoTC to decide when to collect, with the court being involved only if the defendant refuses to pay.  But then again, I think a lawyer has to correct me.


----------



## kenmarable (Aug 28, 2009)

I don't know the laws on this sort of things (and I think it varies by state anyway), but I'm sure it'll be a matter of garnishing his wages until it's paid off.

And figuring the legal fees could easily climb into that region, I don't think it's insane to settle for something that high. In fact, I admire him for claiming responsibility unlike the other person who isn't even responding.

Lastly, legal documents can be humorous. I like the "The Plaintiff acknowledges that the Defendant is not an infant nor incompetent." I understand the legal reasons for that statement, but I can't help reading it like an apology for a poorly worded email. I almost expected to see "The Plaintiff acknowledges that the Defendant is neither an ignoramus nor has his head, or any other portion of his body hereto, inserted up his posterior. Furthermore, it is acknowledged that the Defendant's mother cannot be 'had' for a 'dime' or any other financial amount."


----------



## Voadam (Aug 28, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> Well, he said he was a college student and both parents were unemployed.  Let's not assume his plea and the decision suddenly means he'll have to pay the entire $100,000.00.  I think it's up to WoTC to decide that.
> 
> Plus I think WoTC is less likely to care about the money so much as the agreement of his to never violate copyright again.  The "permanent injunction" is useful for several reasons.




No, I think the injunction is practically worthless. He agrees not to infringe, it only becomes relevant if he does it again. He's just one guy. Its not like there are only seven pirates in the world and all it takes is a legal adventure path to knock them off one by one around the globe to eliminate the issue of pirated books.

I don't think they care if they won't get anything from him personally, they wanted the precedent and statement of getting that judgment. They want to say that infringing = big money damages and they will go after people who copy their stuff with heavy legal action.


----------



## N0Man (Aug 29, 2009)

Let me be upfront and say that I'm not here to defend piracy as an absolute. It certainly can cause damage, and I think that a measure of concern over it is valid, but I think a lot of it is an overreaction.

I am going to confess that I have pirated copies of almost every 4E book in PDF format.  I also want to make the claim, that I have not caused any loss of money, at all, from WotC.

How is this possible?

Simple.  First, I downloaded books to evaluate them.  Yes, it was illegal, but my purpose of doing so was basically to browse through the book to evaluate the book before I bought them (sometimes before they were even in my local stores).  Technically, I could have drove across town, wasted time and gas, and done the same thing in the store.  In the end though, WotC has been making books for 4E that I've been pleased with, so I end up buying them anyway.  Since I purchased them, in the end there was no victim, except maybe the local gas station, who didn't get my business.

Also, some of the downloads were after I bought a hardcopy, and I wanted to be able to quickly search through them at the game table (through the miracle of "Find").  Many things are on DDI, but not all of them, so a digital can be useful in keeping the speed of a game going (especially given the poor quality of the Index of many of the books).

Finally, I also have file versions of many Dungeon Tiles sets.  I also have purchased many from stores.  The reason for this is that may sets were underproduced, time-limited and are hard or impossible to find.  So yes, I've committed piracy here, but I've also sent *numerous* e-mails, and have made multiple pleas on both these boards and on the Gleemax boards for WotC to re-release or reprint some of these sets, especially those they commonly reference in current materials.

My point is that not everyone who has pirated copies of materials is making the company lose money.  I've bought books after seeing them pirated, and I've pirated copies once I bought them, and I've pirated materials that I've tried to buy in stores but have been unable to, and have digital access to the majority of the content anyway as a subscriber to DDI, so even more money from me to WotC.

So, though I've pirated hundreds of dollars in materials, I have not caused WotC any loss at all.

I am not going to pretend to represent the majority of people who have pirated these books, but merely pointing out that I fall into at least one of the scenarios that the claims of loss are completely off the mark.

I would go as far as to say that the vast majority of people who pirate the materials fall into the following categories:


People who have or will purchase the materials anyway.
People who would not purchase the materials anyway, even if it weren't available illegally.
People who pirate it *only* because it's free, but have little to no use from the product, and wouldn't even have interest in it if it weren't available illegally.
People who would like to buy the materials, but really can't afford to... (but they often will try to at a later time)
If I had to hazard a guess, based on my personal experience from myself and the many other people who I've known who've commited in some form of piracy, I would say that the number of pirates out there that pirate a product instead of buying, when they were willing and able to buy it if piracy wasn't an option, is maybe 10% of the pirates.

Anyway, I'm not trying to say piracy is right, but it often doesn't hurt nearly as much as some think.


----------



## GMforPowergamers (Aug 29, 2009)

N0Man said:


> If I had to hazard a guess, based on my personal experience from myself and the many other people who I've known who've commited in some form of piracy, I would say that the number of pirates out there that pirate a product instead of buying, when they were willing and able to buy it if piracy wasn't an option, is maybe 10% of the pirates.
> 
> Anyway, I'm not trying to say piracy is right, but it often doesn't hurt nearly as much as some think.




I disagree in my experiance most people who pirate do hurt...infact I know 2 guys who own no 4e products legaly, is not now nor ever been a DDI memeber...yet both have every dragon, dungeon, and book...event he reverasnt (But not the psion yet) and a two month old character builder...

I assumed they were in the minority, and that some did really mean no harm...but 10% is way too low...way too low


----------



## kenmarable (Aug 29, 2009)

N0Man said:


> Anyway, I'm not trying to say piracy is right, but it often doesn't hurt nearly as much as some think.



Yep, given the nature of the problem, I'm not sure a clear scientific study could be made, and in lieu of clear facts, just how much digital piracy hurts actual sales will be debated in circles. 

It's common sense that in a lawsuit WotC will argue the worst case scenario and that every view and download was a potential lost sale. It's pretty safe to assume that no, not every single one is a lost sale. However, the other extreme of "all piracy is actually good because it acts like a preview for people to actually buy the books" is also pretty safe to assume is false, especially for a very well known market leader like WotC or even the "everyone who downloaded it would never have bought it anyway" is probably not 100% true - not to mention contradictory to the previous view of illegal PDFs being good previews.

However, as to which end of that 3 pointed spectrum the truth lies (downloads = lost sales, downloads = increased sales, downloads = irrelevant) is utterly unknown to anyone, and probably varies a whole freakin lot between companies and even products at a single company. 

So, yeah, it's doubtful that the harm is as bad as WotC argues (although, again, it's sensible in a lawsuit for them to argue worst case scenario and the judge to balance the two sides) but it's also doubtful no harm occured. But all anyone has are guesses as to how harmful it really is. Which is a shame, because some actual facts would be nice in these sorts of discussions, but with so much variation and such difficulty in accurately tracking these things, we'll be stuck with anecdotal evidence and competing philosophical agendas for a very long time.


----------



## Mark Hope (Aug 29, 2009)

N0Man said:


> ...So, though I've pirated hundreds of dollars in materials, I have not caused WotC any loss at all...




If you pirated these books using torrents or a p2p service like Emule, you may well have caused WotC loss.  If you downloaded those books in that way, the program you used will almost certainly have made them (in whole or in part) available to other pirates.  Can you be so sure that these other pirates then went on to buy the books concerned, or were merely obtaining digital copies of books they already owned?  I think not.  In such a case, you gave WotC's IP away to other pirates.


----------



## N0Man (Aug 29, 2009)

GMforPowergamers said:


> I disagree in my experiance most people who pirate do hurt...infact I know 2 guys who own no 4e products legaly, is not now nor ever been a DDI memeber...yet both have every dragon, dungeon, and book...event he reverasnt (But not the psion yet) and a two month old character builder...
> 
> I assumed they were in the minority, and that some did really mean no harm...but 10% is way too low...way too low




Ok, but do you think they would have actually bought all of those if piracy wasn't an option?

Would they have bought all of them?

Would they have bought even half of those things?

You should ask them sometime, "hypothetically, if all those pirated books and magazines you have were to disappear due to a hard drive crash, and hypothetically, pirated copies all dried up and weren't available anymore, which of those books would you and could you actually buy?"   If they were to even buy 20% of them, I'd be surprised.

I'm not trying to suggest that it's never a loss, I'm merely arguing that a pirated copy isn't universally a loss.  Often, the arguments regarding the damage inflicted on copyright owners is completely is derived from some fantastical scenario that every person who pirates would have bought the product if it weren't available illegally.

This is an absurd and unrealistic assumption that is not grounded in reality at all.

People will take things just because they can, if it's "free", regardless of whether they would buy it, whether they still will buy it, sometimes whether or not they even like it!


----------



## N0Man (Aug 29, 2009)

Mark Hope said:


> If you pirated these books using torrents or a p2p service like Emule, you may well have caused WotC loss.  If you downloaded those books in that way, the program you used will almost certainly have made them (in whole or in part) available to other pirates.




That would be a valid point, if I were to have got them from P2P and shared them, rather than a direct download.  Everything isn't about P2P you know.


----------



## N0Man (Aug 29, 2009)

kenmarable said:


> Yep, given the nature of the problem, I'm not sure a clear scientific study could be made, and in lieu of clear facts, just how much digital piracy hurts actual sales will be debated in circles.
> 
> It's common sense that in a lawsuit WotC will argue the worst case scenario and that every view and download was a potential lost sale. It's pretty safe to assume that no, not every single one is a lost sale. However, the other extreme of "all piracy is actually good because it acts like a preview for people to actually buy the books" is also pretty safe to assume is false, especially for a very well known market leader like WotC or even the "everyone who downloaded it would never have bought it anyway" is probably not 100% true - not to mention contradictory to the previous view of illegal PDFs being good previews.
> 
> ...




I understand you completely, it's just that when studies have been done on these subjects, they often really don't support many of the arguments made.

I buy books from WotC because I like their products, I think they are worth buying, and I want to do my fair share in keeping the company profitable and alive.  I personally believe that any person who can afford to buy from WotC, claims to like the product, and chooses to pirate instead is a selfish shmuck, but that's just my opinion.

I'm just sharing my experience, and just for the fact that *I* exist, with the habits that I've already described, means that obviously the rule that a pirated copy = a lost sale is not true, and I find it a pretty unlikely possibility that I'm the only person who falls into such a category.  How much it's not true is a matter of complete conjecture, but my gut feeling is that the loss is vastly overestimated, but it's impossible to prove or disprove.

I certainly concede that not everyone is like me... because I would haven't of put the files online for everyone else to get in the first place.  Just for that fact, there obviously aren't like me.


----------



## Thanee (Aug 29, 2009)

So, they really thought there was just the visible watermark in the PDFs? 

How naive!

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Cadfan (Aug 29, 2009)

Silverblade The Ench said:


> Question, since I didn't read the court documents:
> How do they know the _accused _actually put these items up on P2P themselves?
> How can they prove that someone didn't hack their PC and take the files, or a friend using that PC, considering how many folks' WIFI networks aren't secured, PCs that are shared, and how many folk's computers are riddled with malware?
> Or that the security system has itself been broken..rather neat way to cover your tracks by putting Santa Claus or some poor schlub as the actual ID, eh?
> ...



The problem here is that the burden proof isn't philosphical certainty, its whether people believe your alternate explanation. Basically, to advance those arguments the defendants would have to walk into the courtroom, tell the judge or jury that they didn't upload the documents, that someone must have stolen them from their computers and uploaded them, and then the judge or jury would have to believe them as opposed to believing the alternate hypothesis- that they did it.

Imagine this- I say you stole a hundred bucks from my wallet. You say you didn't. The only evidence is my testimony, and yours. I can't even prove I had the hundred bucks before hand, except by my statement saying that I did.

That's enough evidence to get you criminally convicted, beyond a reasonable doubt, and put in jail. If a jury believes me and not you, of course. And if they don't believe me, well, you can steal my hundred dollars and nothing happens to you.

That may seem shocking, but... its been the basis of the legal system as long as its existed. Most crimes just haven't got proof that would hold up to scientific or philosophical rigor. Instead we rely on a jury to listen to everything, and just sort of figure things out as best they can. 


Silverblade The Ench said:


> And the concept that copyright cases can hit ordinary Joe Bloes harder than _criminal _fines...is outrageous.



Criminal fines tend to be very small in comparison to civil damages. Monetary fines aren't really the point of the criminal system, which is more about loss of freedom as punishment. Its just how the system is built- civil costs you money, criminal costs you time.


----------



## Imban (Aug 29, 2009)

Thanee said:


> So, they really thought there was just the visible watermark in the PDFs?
> 
> How naive!




The new watermark was implemented in December 2008.
The old one contained an invisible component as well.

I would categorize this as "a successful sting operation" far more than "oh those dumbasses thinking it was that easy."



			
				N0man said:
			
		

> (snip everything you said)




Look, it's at the very least not polite to declare on a message board frequented by some of a game's creators that you're looting their stuff for free. If you think the creator deserves contempt - and I freely give it to anyone who tries to remove previously available content from all circulation permanently - then go ahead, I guess, but realize it for what it is.

(Like ff6shadow and his deciding to delete all his 4e stuff forever. I kept putting off spitefully reposting all of it in his thread and then WotC's forums exploded, but again, it's not something you say in public about someone you *approve* of.)



			
				Cadfan said:
			
		

> Basically, to advance those arguments the defendants would have to walk into the courtroom, tell the judge or jury that they didn't upload the documents, that someone must have stolen them from their computers and uploaded them, and then the judge or jury would have to believe them as opposed to believing the alternate hypothesis- that they did it.




The funny thing about this is that according to the documents, one of the defendants is attempting precisely this defense. I figure it'll be approximately as likely to succeed as in any other copyright case (i.e. not at all) because it seems to me, bearing in mind that I'm not a lawyer, that it's rooted in a fundamental misconception of the differences between civil and criminal trials. Civil trials only require the preponderance of the evidence, while criminal trials require a higher standard of proof. 

For example, if you're absolutely sure one of two people committed a murder, but there's always going to be uncertainty as to which one, our criminal system basically mandates that they both go free. On the other hand, in a civil trial it'd be relatively easy to convince people that whichever one seemed somewhat more likely had the "preponderance of the evidence" against him and thus you could sue for damages. Also see the OJ Simpson trial, where the government failed to prove that he committed murder beyond a reasonable doubt, but it was successfully proven that it was *likely* that he caused a wrongful death.

Point is, "but there's at least a CHANCE it could have been my evil twin!" can't get you out of copyright infringement.


----------



## jgerman (Aug 29, 2009)

kenmarable said:


> However, as to which end of that 3 pointed spectrum the truth lies (downloads = lost sales, downloads = increased sales, downloads = irrelevant) is utterly unknown to anyone, and probably varies a whole freakin lot between companies and even products at a single company.




It's not just unknown, the argument can be made that it's unknowable.

However, there is one aspect of this whole fiasco that is certain: The only thing that absolutely, 100%, resulted in lost sales for WotC was the removal of the PDFs for purchase.


----------



## jgerman (Aug 29, 2009)

Imban said:


> Look, it's at the very least not polite to declare on a message board frequented by some of a game's creators that you're looting their stuff for free. If you think the creator deserves contempt - and I freely give it to anyone who tries to remove previously available content from all circulation permanently - then go ahead, I guess, but realize it for what it is.




I'd say it's very polite. He's providing valuable market information for free 

Copyright infringement in the digital age is a reality, it's not going to change, it's time the rules change.

This whole endeavor by WotC is a complete failure as well as being irrational. They're not going to recover the money they spent to sue, they've generated ill-will in the community, they haven't stopped infringement, and they started losing sales the instant they took down the legal pdfs.

This is a net loss for WotC and if I was a shareholder I'd be pissed.


----------



## Baron Opal (Aug 29, 2009)

jgerman said:


> However, there is one aspect of this whole fiasco that is certain: The only thing that absolutely, 100%, resulted in lost sales for WotC was the removal of the PDFs for purchase.




No. They had documentation from *one* of the torrent sites as to the number of downloads of the PHB 2. It was over twice the number of reported sales of the book. There are many torrent sites.

That's 100% indicative of lost sales from pirating. And by no small amount, either. *How much* has been lost is certainly debatable.


----------



## JohnRTroy (Aug 29, 2009)

I think if I was on a jury I'd be skeptical of "somebody else did it", unless they can back it up with better proof.

If somebody wanted to prove legitimate computer compromises, there are ways to go about doing it.  Get the ISP involved--have the lawyers get records looking for activity.  See if the person was the victim of identity theft, or a credit fraud.  Get receipts from a computer repair person who had to clean up a virus or breach and have it stated on the receipt.  If the breach was on a work or corporate computer get IT involved.  And if I knew I'd been hacked, I would probably contact every person I bought an electronic copy from and tell them of a possible breach, so that they would help me fight it.

If somebody was going to personally get revenge as a hacker there would be a lot worse ways than stealing a person's PDFs and putting them on-line, so I see the scenario as possible but highly improbable.



> Copyright infringement in the digital age is a reality, it's not going to change, it's time the rules change.




Such as maybe having trusted computer ids, better security, and better DRM that does not cause computer problems and has enough safeguards for the consumer?  See, that argument can work both ways.  I honestly think we're going end up having more restrictions and anonymity will become a thing of the past.  All we really need is one massive cyberattack that defrauds millions (or is a true terrorist attack on critical systems) of people to do it.

Personally, I wish we had that system so we could do something like have personal violations like traffic tickets--you get caught, automatic $1000 fine or something like that.  You want to fight it, it's like a traffic ticket from an automated camera--you vs. the ISP cop or something like that.  Most people don't challenge traffic tickets.  In this scenario, the proceeds in part go to the publisher who was defrauded.  If it was like that, you'd see a lot more people not bother, much like there are people who speed and double-park but the risk of getting caught is higher and most people will obey the law.  I'm kind of hoping in 10-20 years it will actually be like that.


----------



## GMforPowergamers (Aug 29, 2009)

N0Man said:


> Ok, but do you think they would have actually bought all of those if piracy wasn't an option?
> 
> Would they have bought all of them?
> 
> ...




OK, well with movies, and music, and novels that may be a big quastion, how can you even pretend to ask it about an RPG?

every pirate I know plays the game...most do not own the books they use legaly...I will use the guy from my LFR game as an example:

   if he lost and could not replace his pirated books and programs...he would be forced to buy atleast some of them...or steal them another way...becuse we do not update at the table. He enjoys playing, he loves options, and how do you make characters with out books???

  Ok lets take this  step further, if guy A has draconomicon as pirated only, maybe he would or would not have bought it...but if you play the game for long there are vooks you NEED, and if you pirated them you are stealing...no ifs and or buts...



by the way, every pirate I know of also is better off with money then I am...I am a completest, I want every book...I have not bought one since divine power came out...becuse I am broke.  Mean wile the guy from the example above has no family (Aka wife kids) owns his car, lives in a house with no morgage payment, and make 80,000 a year...he CAN afford the books but he thinks it is funny not to pay for things...


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## Mark Hope (Aug 29, 2009)

N0Man said:


> That would be a valid point, if I were to have got them from P2P and shared them, rather than a direct download.  Everything isn't about P2P you know.




Hence the "if" at the start of the post.  Whatever.  You're clearly happy being a thief, so you're a lost cause.  A shame you weren't raised to be a person of honour instead.  Your family must be so very proud.


----------



## N0Man (Aug 29, 2009)

Imban said:


> Look, it's at the very least not polite to declare on a message board frequented by some of a game's creators that you're looting their stuff for free. If you think the creator deserves contempt - and I freely give it to anyone who tries to remove previously available content from all circulation permanently - then go ahead, I guess, but realize it for what it is.
> 
> (Like ff6shadow and his deciding to delete all his 4e stuff forever. I kept putting off spitefully reposting all of it in his thread and then WotC's forums exploded, but again, it's not something you say in public about someone you *approve* of.)




That's a blatant mischaracterization of what I said.  I did not declare that I'm looting all their stuff for free.  I declared that I've bought all their books and am a DCI subscriber, and that I fully support and encourage the purchases of the books.  What I stated was that my behavior caused them no loss, because I have purchased everything.

In the *one* example that I gave where there was a product that I did not buy, it is a product that I've practically begged to buy!  I've contacted CSR twice asking them if the product will ever be re-released, posted on official forums about 3 times when the subject came up to add my support for re-release.  I want to give them my money but they aren't selling the product.  Again, there is no loss.

I was not encouraging depriving WotC of sales, but merely that not all acts of piracy's actually do this.


----------



## N0Man (Aug 29, 2009)

Mark Hope said:


> Hence the "if" at the start of the post.  Whatever.  You're clearly happy being a thief, so you're a lost cause.  A shame you weren't raised to be a person of honour instead.  Your family must be so very proud.




I stated clearly that I purchased the products (that were for sale), supported purchasing the products, am a DDI subscriber, and that people who pirated and used these items when they could have purchased them are shmucks...

Insult and slander is not called for.


----------



## jgerman (Aug 29, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> No. They had documentation from *one* of the torrent sites as to the number of downloads of the PHB 2. It was over twice the number of reported sales of the book. There are many torrent sites.
> 
> That's 100% indicative of lost sales from pirating. And by no small amount, either. *How much* has been lost is certainly debatable.




Nope. It's 100% indicative of file sharing taking place, that is all. 

Whether that file sharing resulted in more, less, or the same amount of sales for WotC. There are studies that indicate that file sharing has no impact on sales and some that indicate that it has a positive impact. The bottom line is you have no idea in this case, you're making assumptions with zero data.

What I said was correct. It is uncertain whether this file sharing had a positive or negative impact on WotCs sales. If you have evidence to the contrary feel free to present it. However the fact that file sharing was taking place is not that evidence. Nor is "because everyone says so".


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## Mark Hope (Aug 29, 2009)

N0Man said:


> I stated clearly that I purchased the products (that were for sale), supported purchasing the products, am a DDI subscriber, and that people who pirated and used these items when they could have purchased them are shmucks...
> 
> Insult and slander is not called for.




It's not slander if it's true (and it would be libel anyway, not slander).

You gained added value from the material you pirated.  You said as much yourself.  You did not pay WotC for this added value.  You stole it from them.  You are a thief and without honour.

*Piratecat here, with a cautionary note for everyone reading: it doesn't matter whether you approve or disapprove of other folks' actions. I think we'll all find it easier to communicate if we don't start preaching to one another. Call people whatever you like in the privacy of your own home, but insulting them here -- yes, even if you disapprove of something they've done -- should be avoided.

Thanks. PM me with any questions.  ~ PCat*


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## Xyxox (Aug 29, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> No. They had documentation from *one* of the torrent sites as to the number of downloads of the PHB 2. It was over twice the number of reported sales of the book. There are many torrent sites.
> 
> That's 100% indicative of lost sales from pirating. And by no small amount, either. *How much* has been lost is certainly debatable.




Actually, that is not indicative of a single lost sale. All it indicates is that people downloaded the product without paying for it. It does not indicate that even one of those people who downloaded would have paid a dime for the product had the avenue of downloading not been available.

Heck, it doesn't even indicate that even one of those who downloaded it even read more than a handful of words from the PDF, let alone used it for an actual game.


----------



## Imban (Aug 29, 2009)

No one said:


> You gained added value from the material you pirated.  You said as much yourself.  You did not pay WotC for this added value*, because they wouldn't take your money*, so heck with them.




Seriously, as much as I don't think people should go around announcing that they are a pirate in public, I believe he actually did the right and proper thing here, despite it being illegal.



			
				GMForPowergamers said:
			
		

> Ok lets take this step further, if guy A has draconomicon as pirated only, maybe he would or would not have bought it...but if you play the game for long there are vooks you NEED, and if you pirated them you are stealing...no ifs and or buts...




That doesn't mean they'd have bought it. I watch fansubs of anime and value essentially all anime that I actually watch at near $0, so if fansubs suddenly dried up, I'd basically stop watching anime entirely.

Likewise, I know quite a few pirate RPG players who, if not for piracy, would just be freeform roleplayers or MMORPG players, because "that thing my friends dragged me into" isn't something they're actually into at the level where they want to spend cash on it.


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## kenmarable (Aug 29, 2009)

Mark Hope said:


> You are a thief and without honour.



Woah, I'm not an admin, but I'm sure one will be along momentarily to give a warning of even thread lock.

In the meanwhile, cut the personal crap. Let's ALL* stop talking about one person's behavior (right, wrong, honorable, whatever) and discuss preferably the court case (see thread title) or at least stick with the abstract discussion of piracy rather than insulting a fellow EN World member.

But that's just me who would like to see a thread about the court case continue but fears a threadlock is all of the sudden pretty imminent. 


* And, N0Man, I say this to you as well. You made a point, but, personally, I think continuing discussion of your own behavior (which as you even state is only indicative of just your own behavior and may or may not reflect the larger reality) probably isn't going to get any further than generating more insults your way.


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## Mark Hope (Aug 29, 2009)

Imban said:


> > Originally Posted by No one, but let's misquote Mark Hope
> > You gained added value from the material you pirated. You said as much yourself. You did not pay WotC for this added value, because they wouldn't take your money, so heck with them.



.  I agree that WotC have only made things worse by pulling all their legal pdfs.  But that doesn't suddenly turn stealing into not-stealing.



Imban said:


> Seriously, as much as I don't think people should go around announcing that they are a pirate in public, I believe he actually did the right and proper thing here, despite it being illegal.



"Illegal" is not "right and proper".



kenmarable said:


> Woah, I'm not an admin, but I'm sure one will be along momentarily to give a warning of even thread lock.



So be it.  I think it's awful that Enworld should give airtime to self-confessed thieves.


----------



## Imban (Aug 29, 2009)

Mark Hope said:


> "Illegal" is not "right and proper".




The law and morality are not always in perfect alignment. But we've probably gone a bit off-topic here.


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## Nifft (Aug 29, 2009)

Mark Hope said:


> You are a thief and without honour.






Mark Hope said:


> So be it.  I think it's awful that Enworld should give airtime to self-confessed thieves.



 And here we see why it's so hard to get realistic data on what the effects of copyright violation actually are.

Oh well, -- N


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## Mark Hope (Aug 29, 2009)

Imban said:


> The law and morality are not always in perfect alignment. But we've probably gone a bit off-topic here.



Not always, no.  But I don't think that N0Man represents a corner-case here.



Nifft said:


> And here we see why it's so hard to get realistic data on what the effects of copyright violation actually are.
> 
> Oh well, -- N



I don't want to be part of a community that allows self-confessed thieves to go unchallenged for the sake of interesting discussion.  Enworld is the poorer for it.

(It may well also be poorer for my unwillingess to keep my big mouth shut on this matter, but I am willing to wear the consequences if it comes to that.)


----------



## Mort_Q (Aug 29, 2009)

Hmmm...

Scribd is new to me.  Just did a search on D&D... and lots of 3.5 stuff came up.  How annoying.


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## Nifft (Aug 29, 2009)

Mark Hope said:


> I don't want to be part of a community that allows self-confessed thieves to go unchallenged for the sake of interesting discussion.  Enworld is the poorer for it.
> 
> (It may well also be poorer for my unwillingess to keep my big mouth shut on this matter, but I am willing to wear the consequences if it comes to that.)



 It's not your place to shut down any discussion. We have moderators for that. If you don't like a post, *report it*.

Insulting people is unacceptable. Full stop.

The mods here do a good job. Don't make extra work by being ban-worthy.

Cheers, -- N


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## Mark Hope (Aug 29, 2009)

Nifft said:


> It's not your place to shut down any discussion. We have moderators for that. If you don't like a post, *report it*.
> 
> Insulting people is unacceptable. Full stop.
> 
> ...




Except I'm not shutting down discussion, am I?  Nor do I have any problems with N0Man's post in and of itself.  I'm offering fair criticism of his self-confessed theft.  Furthermore, it is not insulting to call a thief a thief, especially when he has admitted to being one.

I completely agree with you, by the way, that the mods here do a fantastic job.  I just don't see that this is wholly a matter for the mods.  If a member of this community brags about their piracy, there is nothing wrong with offering criticism of that.  At least, that's my take on it.  If that gets me banned, so be it.


----------



## Dannager (Aug 29, 2009)

Mark Hope said:


> Furthermore, it is not insulting to call a thief a thief, especially when he has admitted to being one.



He hasn't admitted to theft.  He's admitted to taking advantage of copyright infringement through digital piracy, but equating that with theft is incorrect.

Thieves engage in theft.  Copyright infringement is not theft.


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## Mark Hope (Aug 29, 2009)

Dannager said:


> He hasn't admitted to theft.  He's admitted to taking advantage of copyright infringement through digital piracy, but equating that with theft is incorrect.
> 
> Thieves engage in theft.  Copyright infringement is not theft.




He took something that didn't belong to him without paying for it and without the owner's permission.  That is stealing.  Simple as that.


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## RefinedBean (Aug 29, 2009)

Mark Hope said:


> He took something that didn't belong to him without paying for it and without the owner's permission.  That is stealing.  Simple as that.




Uh, no.  The guy engaged in piracy.  Which is different from theft.

If he had gone to a store and stolen a physical copy, that would be theft.

But since WotC/distributors still have their physical copies of their books, as well as access to digital copies, he logically couldn't have "stolen" from them, since "stealing" implies loss of a physical (or quantifiable) product.


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## N0Man (Aug 29, 2009)

Mark Hope said:


> He took something that didn't belong to him without paying for it and without the owner's permission.  That is stealing.  Simple as that.




I have almost all of the 4E books in harcopy already, save for maybe a mere 2 or 3.  I have bought at least one copy of every single Dungeon Tile Set made so far except the very newest set, multiple copies of some and paying the stupid price-gouging price on one set.  I am also a DDI subscriber. 

I am not a thief that is ripping off WotC, I'm a loyal customer.

If I had personally scanned and OCR'd the books I bought, for my own personal use to put on a thumb drive so that I could carry them with me for a game without taking all my actual books wouldn't I be within my rights?  The only difference between that and what I have done is that I'm not the one that scanned them.  I did, however buy them.

I only brought up the entire subject to discuss the subject of piracy in general and some of the flawed assumptions.  I didn't do it to praise piracy, or even to say that to pirate and NOT buy materials was ok.  Furthermore, I most certainly did not do so to be attacked by some overzealous and overly judgmental poster.

I tried being reasonable and polite, but I'm am quite tired of the personal attacks,  of you calling me a thief and claiming that I didn't pay for my materials.  I have paid for these books and more.


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## Mark Hope (Aug 29, 2009)

RefinedBean said:


> Uh, no.  The guy engaged in piracy.  Which is different from theft.
> 
> If he had gone to a store and stolen a physical copy, that would be theft.
> 
> But since WotC/distributors still have their physical copies of their books, as well as access to digital copies, he logically couldn't have "stolen" from them, since "stealing" implies loss of a physical (or quantifiable) product.




Stealing is taking something that you should not be taking, plain and simple.  Whether lawyers choose to differentiate between digital piracy and theft as legal terms is neither here nor there.  N0Man took things he should not have taken.  If you would rather N0Man be labelled a pirate than a thief, that's fine by me.  Either way, it's pretty scummy behaviour and distasteful of him to come here and crow about how it's actually OK.


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## Mark Hope (Aug 29, 2009)

N0Man, so sorry if you're tired of being criticised for your behaviour.  Maybe you shouldn't have broken the law and then tried to say that it's OK for you to have done so, eh?  What you did was wrong.  Wear it.


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## jgerman (Aug 29, 2009)

Mark Hope said:


> Stealing is taking something that you should not be taking, plain and simple.  Whether lawyers choose to differentiate between digital piracy and theft as legal terms is neither here nor there.  N0Man took things he should not have taken.  If you would rather N0Man be labelled a pirate than a thief, that's fine by me.  Either way, it's pretty scummy behaviour and distasteful of him to come here and crow about how it's actually OK.





What the law chooses to call it is EXACTLY here AND there. Once you step away from the legal definitions you're forwarding nothing more than opinion. 

Personally, I'm comfortable with talking about whether or not he was wrong legally and even whether or not it should be wrong. I'm not so much interested in your personal opinions on morality. Especially since attitudes like that tend to squash discussion.


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## N0Man (Aug 29, 2009)

Instead of posting more inflammatory remarks, why don't you answer the question I posed.

If I had personally scanned my hardcopies and OCR'd them, put them on my laptop or thumb-drive for strictly my own personal use, would you still say that I was stealing?

And for the record, I was not "crowing" about it or any other such nonsense.  In fact, I was reluctant to even admit it, but only did so for the sake of discussion.  My whole reason for it was to make the valid and true point that you can't assume that all downloads are a sales loss.  It's simply not true.

I stole nothing.  I deprived WotC of nothing.  I bought the materials, I am not a thief.  Technically you could say I committed piracy, and even that was only to obtain digital versions for my own personal use that I could have created myself under Fair Use.

I'm not even going to say that what I did was right, or legal.  At the very best, it would be a gray area of rationalizing, and I realize that.  However, what I will argue is that I created absolutely no loss to WotC, and that it is very likely that many other exceptions exist, and *again*, downloads does not equal sales loss.  *THAT* is my main and only point I've tried to bring up before your derailment.


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## StreamOfTheSky (Aug 29, 2009)

Mark Hope said:


> He took something that didn't belong to him without paying for it and without the owner's permission.  That is stealing.  Simple as that.




No, it's copyright infringement.

The "owner" is whoever bought the book, who presumably was ok with sharing it.  If WotC remained the onwer of a book you bought, and being the owner of said book allowed them to dictate exactly what you can and can't do with it ("no showing it to people who haven't bought it!") RPGs would have a hard time staying in existence...

Stop insulting him.  I reported your first post, I'm tempted to do so for every single one that followed since they're all harassing, but I won't bother the mods like that.  I look forward to not having your annoying precense in this thread soon, so I can go back to reading insightful posts.

N0man, thanks for trying to give some kind of anectdotal information, since that's the best we can do right now to understand how piracy affects sales.  Kudos to you for actually buying all the products you like, instead of just keeping the free copy you downloaded.


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## Dannager (Aug 29, 2009)

Mark Hope said:


> He took something that didn't belong to him without paying for it and without the owner's permission.  That is stealing.  Simple as that.



No.

You can call it whatever you like, but your perspective on theft and piracy does not reflect reality.

The fact that you are using that same perspective to judge others is pretty bad.

Why should he "wear it" when you seem completely unwilling to apply an accurate label to him?  If you want to make him "wear" something, it's going to have to be the label of copyright infringer, _not_ thief.


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## Mark Hope (Aug 29, 2009)

Fair enough guys - I'll step out of this now.  It isn't going anywhere and it'll just end up causing offence.  I've said what I want to say.  You wanna be a pirate?  Go for it.  Your loss.


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## ProfessorCirno (Aug 30, 2009)

Mark Hope said:


> Simple as that.




Those three words have done more to shut down conversations and debates all over the history of mankind then anything else.  They're the reason politics and religion are such impolite topics to talk about.

Incidentally, in this case, they're proof that you have no desire to hear anyone's side, and that you're only here to attempt to force people to believe what you believe and nothing else.

Incidentally again, those three words are precisely why discussions about piracy inevitably fall into the maw of chaos and flamebait.

Because, and here's the dirty little secret - *It's NEVER "simple as that."*

As for digital rights piracy, many people believe it is always 100% morally wrong.  Far fewer believe it is 100% always morally right.  And I'd say that far more would say that sometimes it is wrong, and sometimes it is right.  It's all about context.

DRM tends to be the other side of the coin.  Many people believe it is always 100% wrong.  Fewer believe it is 100% always right.  And far more say that sometimes it is wrong, and sometimes it is right.

If there are any sales that piracy has ended for a fact, it's the one time sale of the guy who doesn't really like the game but didn't have a chance to find out.  Piracy gives him that preview to look at the product and go "Oh hey, I do like this" or "Oh hey, I don't like this." 

In the current age of information, hype and marketing are both at insanely all time highs.  Pirating is rising higher and higher in the video game industry, but I would wager that it's not out of peoples' inherent laziness or desire to fight the system, but merely because there are *no* media outlets for reviews on video games that they feel they can trust.  9 times out of ten, if you buy a game only to find out it sucks, pretty much every major gaming media source will tell you how AWESOME it is, and how much of a <insult> you are for not agreeing with them.  Magazines and websites for games have all become great big jokes, in part due to the very real bribery and coercion that occurs to ensure games get the highest scores and most positive reviews.  In short, game reviews are no longer about the games themselves, but what the company gave/did to the magazine/website to ensure their grade.  Naturally, it doesn't help that the writers for these media outlets have begin openly displaying and stating that they rarely play the games they review, and mostly write what they're told to write by their editors, marketing staff, and other writers.  Furthermore, with internet fandom reaching _glorious_ levels of fanaticism, trying to separate the honest opinions from the fandumb is nearly impossible.  And to top it all off, those wonderful things known as "demos" are almost non-existent, and time and time again, developers have been caught open faced lying about their game in order to better sell it, both in interviews and in those curious playtests they have or show at conventions - often times detailing things that aren't in the actual game, but were programmed into the playtest to sell it.

Piracy has given people the ability to _ignore marketing_ and make their own opinions about a product before they have to buy it.  If the critics can't be trusted, if the creators can't be trusted, if your peers can't be trusted, and people have gone to lengths to ensure that you don't get a chance to try out a game before buying it, then how do you ascertain that you're making a smart purchase before buying the product?  In *that specific situation*,  I would argue that piracy IS morally right.


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## Baron Opal (Aug 30, 2009)

jgerman said:


> Nope. It's 100% indicative of file sharing taking place, that is all.
> It is uncertain whether this file sharing had a positive or negative impact on WotCs sales.




You can't possibly be that naive. How can you possibly say there hasn't been lost sales when it can be proven that, on a single server, there have been twice as many downloads as sales? Particularly when you interact with the people on the warez and pirating sites, those that I talked to back in the day had no sense of courtesy or honor. "Why should I pay for it when I can get it for free?" was the theme.



Xyxox said:


> Actually, that is not indicative of a single lost sale. All it indicates is that people downloaded the product without paying for it.




It is exactly indicative of a lost sale since they downloaded it from torrents instead of RPGNow. They accessed the data through a free channel rather than a pay channel. The five people they are going after had purchased copies which were then released on the torrents.

I agree that current businesses need to take into account that their work is going to be scattered all over the internet soon after release. I think there are better solutions, however, that just throwing up your hands and saying "it's inevitable".


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## ProfessorCirno (Aug 30, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> You can't possibly be that naive. How can you possibly say there hasn't been lost sales when it can be proven that, on a single server, there have been twice as many downloads as sales? Particularly when you interact with the people on the warez and pirating sites, those that I talked to back in the day had no sense of courtesy or honor. "Why should I pay for it when I can get it for free?" was the theme.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I think th eproblem is, you're assuming:

Person A wants the book
Person A is willing to buy the book
Person A pirates it instead
The book was originally going to have a sale, but did not because of piracy
Piracy caused lost sales

When in truth, there are a fairly large number of cases where this happens instead:

Person B wants the book
Person B is _not_ willing to buy the book
Person B pirates is instead
The book was not originally going to have a sale
Piracy caused no lost sales


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## N0Man (Aug 30, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> You can't possibly be that naive. How can you possibly say there hasn't been lost sales when it can be proven that, on a single server, there have been twice as many downloads as sales? Particularly when you interact with the people on the warez and pirating sites, those that I talked to back in the day had no sense of courtesy or honor. "Why should I pay for it when I can get it for free?" was the theme.




It's already been discussed here previously, but there was a lot of derailment so I will say it again.  There are many scenarios possibly involved with people who have downloaded pirated copies, and not all of them involve lost sales (though some certainly do).

I can't claim to think of them all, but here are some examples from each:

*Scenarios that usually cause lost sales:*


Someone downloading it simply because they can, who intend to use the document instead of buying the book.
Someone who didn't seek out the pirated copy, but were given it by someone, and aren't going to bother buy a book now that they have it digital.
Downloading a book that they plan on buying for evaluation and then finding out through their evaluation that the product is not worth buying.
Someone downloading it because they can't afford it, but would have bought it otherwise.  However, now that they've found it digitally, they decide to spend their money on something else (such as another book, gas, college text books, and ramen noodles).

*Scenarios that do not or usually do not cause lost sales:*


Someone pirating a book or material that is out of print and unobtainable through reasonable and legal channels.
Someone who downloads a copy to evaluate before buying, who buys the book shortly after (effectively saving them a trip to the book store to thumb through it).
Someone who downloads a copy of a book they've already purchased.
Someone who downloads a copy of a book that is not in stock currently so they can go ahead and start using it, until it's back in stock and they buy it.
Someone who downloads a copy just because they can, but would never have bothered to buy the game if they couldn't get it for "free".
Someone who downloads a copy, and wants to buy a copy, but can't afford to (but will do so when they are able to afford it).
Someone who downloads it because they are an anti-fan, and to download out of spite against the company, and so they can pick out things to criticize about the game, but despise the game and would never actually buy it.
I feel confidant that each of these things occur in some cases (and I've seen every one of these happen before).  There's no way for me to know how many of each of these happens, but neither can you.


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## N0Man (Aug 30, 2009)

Looks like both of us were writing nearly the same ideas at the same time Prof. ;-)


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## Crothian (Aug 30, 2009)

It doesn't matter if it causes a lost sale or not, the pirate has something he should not. Something someone worked hard on and deserves to get paid for for you to have.


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## N0Man (Aug 30, 2009)

Crothian said:


> It doesn't matter if it causes a lost sale or not, the pirate has something he should not. Something someone worked hard on and deserves to get paid for for you to have.




In some cases, what you say is valid.  It may not be fair, and it is infringement, but it's not a loss, which absolutely the only argument I'm trying to make.  I'm not arguing the ethics of pirating, merely arguing that equating downloads to lost sales is faulty presumptuous thinking.

However, you still are ignoring the several scenarios mentioned where they *do* get paid for the work, and not only is there not a loss, there is an actual gain for them.

I realize that sharing personal experience has limited value, however I will also mention that of all the players I've shared a gaming table with since 4E, more than half of them don't buy *or* pirate the books, they just mooch ganders at all my books. 

* I've played with 5 Players who have had pirated digital copies of the books:*


 3 out of 5 of them also bought the books, but had a digital version for ease of use (because 4E indices suck, and "Find..." doesn't).  2 out of those 3 probably wouldn't have bought the hardcopies if they hadn't of checked out the PDF first.
 1 out of the 5 was unemployed and couldn't afford to buy the book anyway, and was lukewarm and unsure about 4E.
 The final person of these 5 pirates had the money to buy at least a couple books, but pirated all of them (which I don't approve of, but even in this case, he only caused an actual loss on a fraction of those).
 
As I said, this is strictly my personal experience and by no means necessarily indicative of the erst of the world, and is an extremely small sample size.  In my games, it's been pretty much a break even between sales that were lost due to piracy and sales that were unaffected or made by piracy.

I should also mention, that I've considered many times of banning pirated copies of materials at my games, unless they have a legit copy too.


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## Crothian (Aug 30, 2009)

N0Man said:


> However, you still are ignoring the several scenarios mentioned where they *do* get paid for the work, and not only is there not a loss, there is an actual gain for them.




I am ignoring this because it doesn't matter.  Only the publisher can decide if he wants to essentially give away a preview version of his book to generate sales.  I imagine publishers would rather you not pirate their books then to get whatever sales they get from people pirating and then buying their books.  

This is a faulty example, I know, but its the best I can think of.  It's a bit like someone stealing a DVD from Best Buy go home and watch it and then the next day go into Best Buy and pay for the DVD they stole.


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## Dannager (Aug 30, 2009)

N0Man said:


> I should also mention, that I've considered many times of banning pirated copies of materials at my games, unless they have a legit copy too.



Huh, this is an interesting idea.  As DM, you have a certain amount of authority to control what is and isn't allowed, and leveraging that authority to prevent harmful piracy is compelling.

I wonder if this idea would catch on with DMs - it keeps your game on the moral up-and-up as well as helping the industry out.


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## Simon Atavax (Aug 30, 2009)

Mark Hope said:


> It's not slander if it's true (and it would be libel anyway, not slander).
> 
> You gained added value from the material you pirated. You said as much yourself. You did not pay WotC for this added value. You stole it from them. You are a thief and without honour.




And since he is "without honor," he should lose his paladin status, right?

(rolls eyes)

Dude, we're not playing D&D here.  This is a real-life discussion involving complex issues and real living, human beings.  Tone down the ridiculous, self-righteous rhetoric.


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## Simon Atavax (Aug 30, 2009)

Dannager said:


> Huh, this is an interesting idea. As DM, you have a certain amount of authority to control what is and isn't allowed, and leveraging that authority to prevent harmful piracy is compelling.
> 
> I wonder if this idea would catch on with DMs - it keeps your game on the moral up-and-up as well as helping the industry out.




The day a DM tells me he's running a "moral" game is the day I ask, "So everyone in your group has to abstain from drinking, smoking, and premarital sex?"  

Then I'll laugh and find another group.


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## Crothian (Aug 30, 2009)

Dannager said:


> Huh, this is an interesting idea.  As DM, you have a certain amount of authority to control what is and isn't allowed, and leveraging that authority to prevent harmful piracy is compelling.
> 
> I wonder if this idea would catch on with DMs - it keeps your game on the moral up-and-up as well as helping the industry out.




Unless your players are bringing pirated material to the table or just admitting it openly I think it would be hard to enforce.  They use the books at home like most players I know do and bring just their character to the table.  When asked if they own Martial Power or whatever the character is built from they would just say yes.  I guess you could require them to bring their books to every session to prove they own them but that seems like a pain.


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## Simon Atavax (Aug 30, 2009)

Mark Hope said:


> Fair enough guys - I'll step out of this now.




Hurrah!


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## kenmarable (Aug 30, 2009)

Crothian said:


> It doesn't matter if it causes a lost sale or not, the pirate has something he should not. Something someone worked hard on and deserves to get paid for for you to have.



That's really the crux of my problem with digital piracy. 

From a publisher standpoint, it's extremely complex of whether to fight piracy or not, and to what extent - or whether to offer your products digitally for free to encourage physical sales or other income strategies, etc. etc.

But from a customer standpoint, it's really simple for me. Downloading an illegal book is rude and disrespectful to the creators. Sure I can talk for hours of whether free distribution benefits them or not, but ultimately it's their decision and I was raised to not feel entitled to free copies of things just because they are digital, and that if I want to get something I have to earn it. For my own actions, it's that simple.

But that's how I feel personally, and it's up to each of us to decide where they fall on the ethics of that whole thing.


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## ProfessorCirno (Aug 30, 2009)

N0Man said:


> I should also mention, that I've considered many times of banning pirated copies of materials at my games, unless they have a legit copy too.




How would you prove that they're pirated?  There's no way in hell I'm dragging all my books to a game when I can just bring my laptop with my pdfs.



Crothian said:


> It doesn't matter if it causes a lost sale or not, the pirate has something he should not. Something someone worked hard on and deserves to get paid for for you to have.




In some cases this is true, in some, not.  I again call to mind my video game example.  I'm primarily a PC gamer, but there's little to no modern day games that I enjoy.  If a game comes out, I want to know if it's good or bad before I purchase it, but I have *no way of knowing* without pirating it - demos are almost nonexistant, the gaming media is a bad joke, and developers are more more often lying about their game and making false "playtests" to showcase it.  This is especially aggravating when my budget doesn't allow for buying every game that starts to catch my eye.  So my choices are to either gamble my money and hope the game doesn't turn out to be a turd (like most do), or grab a torrent and give it a test whirl before shelling out bucks to the game's producer to own an actual copy.

And keep in mind, I'm not saying piracy is _good_.  I know people in the gaming industry who have been hurt by it.

What I'm saying is, it's _not that simple_.  You can't just say everything is "GOOD OR BAD" or "MORAL AND IMMORAL."

At the risk of quoting from a movie that will possibly get me :|s...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A0GdR2LlKo]YouTube - Donnie Darko; Life Line[/ame]


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## Crothian (Aug 30, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> In some cases this is true, in some, not.  I again call to mind my video game example.  I'm primarily a PC gamer, but there's little to no modern day games that I enjoy.  If a game comes out, I want to know if it's good or bad before I purchase it, but I have *no way of knowing* without pirating it - demos are almost nonexistant, the gaming media is a bad joke, and developers are more more often lying about their game and making false "playtests" to showcase it.  This is especially aggravating when my budget doesn't allow for buying every game that starts to catch my eye.  So my choices are to either gamble my money and hope the game doesn't turn out to be a turd (like most do), or grab a torrent and give it a test whirl before shelling out bucks to the game's producer to own an actual copy.




I'm sure there is a video game sites out there like EN World or RPG net where they have mostly civil and honest discussion on games.  In fact I know there are as a friend of mine has been involved with some for years.  You could fine them and make use of them. You could write letters to the companies or just stop supporting companies that you feel are being dishonest and then blog about it or make your opinion heard.  Just because you feel you are not able to get enough information to make a decision on a game doing anything short of pirating does not change things in my mind.


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## Simon Atavax (Aug 30, 2009)

Crothian said:


> I'm sure there is a video game sites out there like EN World or RPG net where they have mostly civil and honest discussion on games. In fact I know there are as a friend of mine has been involved with some for years. You could fine them and make use of them.




Please forgive a tiny threadjack, but I would *love* to know where these video game discussion sites are where one can have thoughtful, intelligent, civil discussions.  Every video game discussion site I've been to (won't mention any by name, of course) the discussion looks like this:

==
OMG your gaystationsuxx!!

yeah you jus tink it sux cuz U sux! LOL!
==

 It's depressing, really.

That's why I go to RPGnet and sometimes Enworld for video game discussion. Ahem.

Sorry, back to the piracy/copyright thing.


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## Crothian (Aug 30, 2009)

Simon Atavax said:


> Please forgive a tiny threadjack, but I would *love* to know where these video game discussion sites are where one can have thoughtful, intelligent, civil discussions.  Every video game discussion site I've been to (won't mention any by name, of course) the discussion looks like this:




Looking at some things from him he seems to do stuff with Gaming Nexus and Game On for Columbus dispatch 

GameOn! 2.0 - A community for gamers from the Columbus Dispatch and Columbus Alive

I have no idea if either place is what you might be looking for, but my friend Shawn Sines has always had a great feel for video games and is a gamer and EN World member.


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## N0Man (Aug 30, 2009)

Crothian said:


> I imagine publishers would rather you not pirate their books then to get whatever sales they get from people pirating and then buying their books.




I don't mean to come off as rude here, but this is probably the single most naive statement that I've ever read in regards to copyright infringement.

Publishers want you to buy their books.  The notion of a publisher on a high horse who doesn't want to sell a product to someone who has pirated material is beyond absurd.



> This is a faulty example, I know, but its the best I can think of.  It's a bit like someone stealing a DVD from Best Buy go home and watch it and then the next day go into Best Buy and pay for the DVD they stole.




You're right, that's an extremely faulty example, since stealing a DVD deprives them of the use of it (to actually sell).  If you want an analogy, it would be someone downloading a DVD rip of the movie, and then going to Best Buy the next day and buying it.

The problem with that analogy is that it's really hard to see what the negative impact on anyone is if you did this aside from annoying people who just don't like the fact that you did, on principle.


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## malraux (Aug 30, 2009)

Crothian said:


> It doesn't matter if it causes a lost sale or not, the pirate has something he should not. Something someone worked hard on and deserves to get paid for for you to have.




Constitutionally (ie the basis for why we have laws on copyright), the goal of copyright is not primarily to be sure that everyone gets paid.  It is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,".  To the extent that piracy doesn't limit the progress of the useful arts, its hard to see the massive deal.


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## Simon Atavax (Aug 30, 2009)

N0Man said:


> I don't mean to come off as rude here, but this is probably the single most naive statement that I've ever read in regards to copyright infringement.
> 
> Publishers want you to buy their books. The notion of a publisher on a high horse who doesn't want to sell a product to someone who has pirated material is beyond absurd.




Exactly.  Publishers are like any other business; they operate on a cost/benefit ratio.  If a publisher genuinely thought that they, overall *benefitted* from people pirating their stuff (i.e. they thought that there was more profit from pirate-to-sales to be made than sales lost from pirating), then they would have no problem with it.

If publishers are openly critical of pirating it is only because they believe, rightly or wrongly, that it COSTS THEM MONEY. 

It all comes down to the bottom line.

(BTW, in my post I used the term "piracy" just out of simplicity, although I agree that "copyright infringement" is more accurate.)


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## Crothian (Aug 30, 2009)

N0Man said:


> I don't mean to come off as rude here, but this is probably the single most naive statement that I've ever read in regards to copyright infringement.
> 
> Publishers want you to buy their books.  The notion of a publisher on a high horse who doesn't want to sell a product to someone who has pirated material is beyond absurd.




If publishers thought that they would be embracing piracy.  But that's not happening.  Piracy it is believed by many of them is costing them more sales then it gives them.  They do want you to buy their books, but that's not what is happening,.  People are illegally downloading them.



> The problem with that analogy is that it's really hard to see what the negative impact on anyone is if you did this aside from annoying people who just don't like the fact that you did, on principle.




This isn't about annoying people, it's about breaking the law.  Just because you aren't seeing the negative impact doesn't mean there isn't one.  By supporting piracy it makes it easier for people that are going to pirate instead of spending money.


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## Crothian (Aug 30, 2009)

malraux said:


> Constitutionally (ie the basis for why we have laws on copyright), the goal of copyright is not primarily to be sure that everyone gets paid.  It is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,".  To the extent that piracy doesn't limit the progress of the useful arts, its hard to see the massive deal.




Except that the people doing the science and art want to get paid and I doubt they'd do it for free.  I don't believe can't disregard the money factor in a capital society.


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## malraux (Aug 30, 2009)

Crothian said:


> Except that the people doing the science and art want to get paid and I doubt they'd do it for free.  I don't believe can't disregard the money factor in a capital society.




Right.  And they are getting paid. When someone violates copyright, that doesn't inherently make the owner poorer.


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## N0Man (Aug 30, 2009)

kenmarable said:


> That's really the crux of my problem with digital piracy.
> 
> From a publisher standpoint, it's extremely complex of whether to fight piracy or not, and to what extent - or whether to offer your products digitally for free to encourage physical sales or other income strategies, etc. etc.
> 
> ...




I think it's good that we can have a discussion here with someone with a publishing standpoint, and I'm glad that you gave input here.

Please note that I never once defended piracy as being "good".  I also never tried to argue that piracy has a net positive benefit (I think it's impossible to know if it's positive or negative).  Rather, I  just dismissed the notion that "X Downloads = X Lost Sales", when there are so many factors that go into this equation that it's impossible to really know what the true ratio is.  The only thing that I can say with certainty is that it's not a 1:1 relationship.

Dishonest arguments such as that (even if it's out of naivety) has the effect of alienating publishers from some potential customers.  Look at the way the music industry's draconian measures have spurred huge amounts of disdain from people who would have been regular customers.  They continually alienate themselves from their customers and then turn around and say it's the piracy's fault and just start the cycle over.

One of the things I've brought up (that nobody really seemed to want to comment on) was that the possession of digital copies of the books, in themselves, can very reasonably be argued to be under Fair Use.

You may argue that it's disrespectful or a false sense of entitlement.  I on the other hand might argue that it's unreasonable for a publisher to deny customer's their rights under Fair Use.  I think we'd both have valid points.

I won't deny that where Fair Use begins and ends is a highly debatable subject, and beyond the scope of us or this thread, so *I don't this to derail into an argument of whether these things absolutely *are* Fair Use or not*, but rather I would like to present the question, "is it *possible* that possessing a _digital copy _of a book that you already own a hard copy of, could at the very least be *reasonably interpreted *to be under Fair Use"?


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## Crothian (Aug 30, 2009)

malraux said:


> Right.  And they are getting paid. When someone violates copyright, that doesn't inherently make the owner poorer.




But it can effect how much money they earn.  Now if that its true or can be proven is not as important as that is what the people holding the copyrights seem to believe.


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## ProfessorCirno (Aug 30, 2009)

Crothian said:


> But it can effect how much money they earn.  Now if that its true or can be proven is not as important as that is what the people holding the copyrights seem to believe.




Yes and no.

People can _believe _a lot of things, but those things can be very foolish and damaging to their own company.  So yes, it's important what the people holding the copyright believes, but it's also important what the _reality of the situation_ is.

EA held the copyright to Spore and believed it was worthwhile to try to protect it with very unpopular DRM.  It, uh, _didn't work out for them_.


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## N0Man (Aug 30, 2009)

Crothian said:


> If publishers thought that they would be embracing piracy.  But that's not happening.  Piracy it is *believed *by many of them is costing them more sales then it gives them.  They do want you to buy their books, but that's not what is happening,.  People are illegally downloading them.




Make up your mind.   First you seemed to suggest that they'd rather not get a sale if the sale was the result of piracy, now you say they do want me to buy their books?  Do they want my business or not?

I also want to point out that I bolded the word "believed", because that's part of what I'm getting at.  The amount that it's costing them is based on assumptions that are false.  I've said this at least 3 times already, but I don't know how much it actually is costing, neither do you, and neither do they.  It's a guess, and a guess made on faulty assumptions.



> This isn't about annoying people, it's about breaking the law.




Actually what I said was that people were getting annoyed because of "principle", rather than there being actual damage.  If your counterargument is "it's about breaking the law", then that really proves my point, that it violates your notion of what is right or wrong (which is commonly referred to as "principle").




> Just because you aren't seeing the negative impact doesn't mean there isn't one. By supporting piracy it makes it easier for people that are going to pirate instead of spending money.




Supporting piracy?  When did I support piracy again?  At the very most, I may have implied that piracy is being overly demonized; that while it may (and I think does) have negative impact, that this impact is often exaggerated and is often backed up by very suspect arguments.

However, you seem quite certain that there is a negative impact on behavior from something such as possessing a digital copy of a book a book that you have purchased and own, for your own personal use, and not sharing with anybody else.  I want you to explain to me what the negative impact is.


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## Cadfan (Aug 30, 2009)

malraux said:


> Constitutionally (ie the basis for why we have laws on copyright), the goal of copyright is not primarily to be sure that everyone gets paid. It is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,". To the extent that piracy doesn't limit the progress of the useful arts, its hard to see the massive deal.



Well, the question in this particular instance is really who gets to decide what's best promoting the progress of the useful arts, which in this case, means best facilitating the creation and distribution of books.

There are really only two positions on this that make sense.

1. Its best to use the present copyright system, and to punish illegal file sharing, because the progress of the useful arts is best promoted by making the useful arts profitable so that people will engage in them more often.  Publishers have a profit motive to encourage them to best understand how and when they profit, and to make decisions about licensing, open products, and copyright enforcement.

2. The progress of the useful arts requires not only that the useful arts be created, but also that they be distributed as widely as possible.  Copyright helps incentivize creation, but it doesn't incentivize distribution.  A degree of violation of copyright (probably an expanded conception of fair use, possibly a general tolerance of low level piracy) should be accepted in order to better spread the useful arts once they've been created.  This view is generally held by people who also believe that free rider effects (ie, a decrease in profitability) will not be so strong as to overwhelm the distribution effects granted by a more lax copyright system.

Option 3, the one I see around here every so often, is probably dumb.  Option 3 goes like this:

3. Its best for the progress of the useful arts if game creators get paid, but they're idiots who don't know how to make money.  For a variety of reasons yhey can make more money if they let me and/or people like me download their materials without consequence.  They just don't realize the many benefits of releasing open copies of their work.  

This point of view usually relies on the idea that professional publishers are too blinded by tradition and a lack of understanding of the internet economy to recognize truths about modern marketing.  It also relies on an unstated assumption that consumers who engage in piracy are best able to evaluate the benefits of open products to the companies from which they pirate.

Point of view number 3 is pretty much ridiculous- it tries to have its cake and eat it too by arguing that profitability is somehow aided by following the opinions of those who have the most incentive to ignore profitability in favor of embracing free riding.  This is unlikely.


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## Deimodius (Aug 30, 2009)

I'm going to take a stab at this. Not opining on the actions of any person(s), just attempting to advance the discussion with ideas for all to consider.

I've noticed over the past few years a trend in thinking where users/consumers make a distinction between the tangible and intangible. Because you can physically interact with an actual book, you consider it "real" (by you I mean a person, not anyone specific on this board). If you can not physically interact with it, you do not consider it "real". We seem to have developed this literal distinction between the "reality" of the same "thing" in the really real world, and the "digital" world. I think this has led us to a belief that if it's not a tangible object, it can't be "stolen" (or infringed if you prefer).

It's a human way of thinking. "It's not a real object, so I didn't steal/infringe anything".

So the real question for debate should be; Is it the object, or the idea?

Really we're talking about two different kinds of objects when we discuss copyright infringement and piracy. You have real-world objects like pencils, and alarm clocks, and potatoes. The pencil _is_ the pencil, there's nothing more to it. It's purpose is served when it is used to make marks on something like paper.

A book, by comparison, is perhaps better described as comprising two separate things; 1. the physical object, and 2. the ideas contained within the object which are relayed to the reader by use of language and symbols. You can have a physical book with blank pages (or with pages covered in symbols that do not actually convey meaning - like Lorem Ipsum), and it is still a book. A book like this, if taken by one person from another person without permission could be described as "stolen". The physical thing was taken.

A book with symbols that actually conveys meaning contains a _second_ thing, that is, the idea that is being conveyed. In a more topical example, let's say we have a physical book (object), that includes the Rules for D&D (idea to be conveyed). When you buy the book, you are buying two things, the physical book (object) _and_ access to the rules (idea). For players of D&D, a physical book full of blank pages has no value if the intention in buying it was to have access to the rules so the game could be played. The value is in having access to the idea conveyed by the book.

So, what exactly is the "product"? Is it the physical book, or the idea conveyed by the symbols on the pages _in_ the book? I would argue that (unless you wanted a blank journal to write in), the product you are actually intending to buy is the _idea_ in the book. The physical book is just the delivery system for the idea.

Now we have computers that are networked together, and the delivery system for the idea has changed.

If I remember my Hobbes' "Leviathan" correctly, the idea he promoted was that if you put your labour in to something, the result was owned by you to do with as you pleased. So if you had an orchard of apple trees that belonged to you and no one else (you discovered them first, and no one had claim to the land, trees, or apples) or you planted them on land you owned, then by putting your labour into them by growing them and picking them, you had converted your labour into something of potential value.

So you can trade those apples to someone else for a goat, let's say. Or, if you don't need a goat right now, you can trade those apples for money. The money is a representation of your labour. You have turned your labour (planting and picking the apples) into something (money) you can use later to trade for something you need/want.

Your labour > your valuable commodity. 

A man creates an idea. Rules to a game. He put his labour in to it, and the result was an idea that _he_ created. He decides it might have value to others. He needs a way to deliver that valuable idea to others, so he uses symbols to record the idea on pages in a physical book. Now we have the internet, and the idea can be disseminated without the need for a physical book, but the idea was still his. He put his labour into it, so it is his to sell, or not.

Are you paying for just the physical book, or are you paying for the idea represented on the pages? (Yes, of course there is value in having a physical object to rely on, carry with, protect from losing data, but as we said if you buy the book to have the rules to play the game, then the same physical book with no words in it would lose its value, so the real value is in the idea conveyed by the text).

Do you buy the book, or the idea? The CD, or the music? The DVD, or the movie? The movie theatre is the delivery system for the story displayed visually (idea). If you sneak into the theatre to watch the movie without paying, have you "stolen" something?

So if the product is the idea, and not the physical book, then if you take the idea to use without paying the creator of the idea for it (so that he can turn his labour into something else), is that theft? (and yes, I am using theft instead of copyright infringement).

I suppose that leads to two different considerations: Moral vs Legal.

The moral one is the tricky one, since morality is subjective.

The legal one is not so tricky. We, the people, have chosen to live in a society where we elect a government to represent us. Then we give them the power to enact laws on our behalf. Those laws are.. well, laws... you obey them, or break them. Not liking a law because it makes something inconvenient for you is not an excuse to break it, or a means of mitigating your actions. If you don't like the law, work to change the law _legitimately_. Whether or not the law was actually broken will be determined by a court or peers, but if the law says you can't do "x", and you did "x", then you have broken the law.


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## N0Man (Aug 30, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> EA held the copyright to Spore and believed it was worthwhile to try to protect it with very unpopular DRM.  It, uh, _didn't work out for them_.




Spore is a great example of attempts to control a copyrighted aspect backfiring on a publisher.  I was one of the people who looked forward to this game for a couple years, who planned on buying it on the release day, and changed my mind *exclusively* based on being VERY unhappy regarding the way they handled DRM.  Not only did I not buy Spore, I haven't bought any EA game since.


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## GMforPowergamers (Aug 30, 2009)

Noman, crino, everyone else...

if you want to support or not support illegal activity, please fork this...I am outraged at this thread...I have been trying to keep up on the news of the lawsuit...however I am being beaten over the head with your moral arguments...

remember drug dealers and drug users are victumless crimes, so is prostitution. I am sure there are other examples...but point blank I am sick of this. I am not trying to get myself booted from this thread (As I have before when these topics come up) but I do feel it is boarder line harressment for you guys to force a topic of it's rails to support your politcal agenda (Piracy is OK)...if you fork I will leave you alone, but right now you are intrudein on an informational thread...please fork it already it is 1 button away from quote...


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## Crothian (Aug 30, 2009)

N0Man said:


> Make up your mind.   First you seemed to suggest that they'd rather not get a sale if the sale was the result of piracy, now you say they do want me to buy their books?  Do they want my business or not?




You're talking micro and I'm talking macro.  It doesn't matter what one person or thirty are doing, what matters is the totally aggregate.  



> I also want to point out that I bolded the word "believed", because that's part of what I'm getting at.  The amount that it's costing them is based on assumptions that are false.  I've said this at least 3 times already, but I don't know how much it actually is costing, neither do you, and neither do they.  It's a guess, and a guess made on faulty assumptions.




Which is why I'm using the language I'm using.  I have no idea what assumptions you are talking about and since your not a publisher I doubt you know what if any assumptions they are using.  



> Supporting piracy?  When did I support piracy again?




Unless I'm thinking of another poster (and I apologize if I am) you have said that you pirate gaming material.  You are defending it in this discussion.  That is supporting piracy.


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## jgerman (Aug 30, 2009)

Crothian said:


> But it can effect how much money they earn.  Now if that its true or can be proven is not as important as that is what the people holding the copyrights seem to believe.




I beg to differ. It doesn't matter what they believe. What matters is whether or not they are actually being harmed by file sharing. There is evidence to support the argument that they are not, in some cases there is mounting evidence to support that file sharing has had a positive result. 

IP laws exist for a very specific reason. They are a bargain between the public and a content creator. The ability to make money is just an incentive to encourage people to produce content which is supposed to eventually make it into the public domain. That is the bargain. The content producer has a time limited ownership of the content after which it goes into the public domain. 

If it can be shown that file sharing is not harming a content producer by the most common metric used (monetary gain or loss) then it shouldn't be illegal to do so. If it's in the best interest of both the public and the producer for file sharing to occur then file sharing is also contributing in a positive way to the intent of copyright law to begin with.

That is where the debate lies and is the other side of the argument, and that's why it IS important what the reality is concerning claims of loss over copyright infringement.


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## Crothian (Aug 30, 2009)

jgerman said:


> I beg to differ. It doesn't matter what they believe. What matters is whether or not they are actually being harmed by file sharing. There is evidence to support the argument that they are not, in some cases there is mounting evidence to support that file sharing has had a positive result.




If one thinks they are being harmed, whether true or not they are going to react in such a way to lessen that harm.  That's why it matters.  

If you have evidence that says file sharing is helpful to publishers then I'm sure there are lots of people that would love to see it.


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## N0Man (Aug 30, 2009)

Deimodius said:


> The legal one is not so tricky. We, the people, have chosen to live in a society where we elect a government to represent us. Then we give them the power to enact laws on our behalf. Those laws are.. well, laws... you obey them, or break them. Not liking a law because it makes something inconvenient for you is not an excuse to break it, or a means of mitigating your actions. If you don't like the law, work to change the law _legitimately_. Whether or not the law was actually broken will be determined by a court or peers, but if the law says you can't do "x", and you did "x", then you have broken the law.




While you had many interesting ideas in your post, there were a few problems with some of your arguments.

First of all, the intention of copyright is to allow the owner to have a monopoly on their work for a limited time.  It was designed to prevent a competitor from profiting from your work.  Copyright only became relevant in regards to consumers because of advances in technology.

Additionally, sneaking into a movie theater may be a crime, but that crime isn't copyright infringement.

Also, the part that I quoted, has 2 problems with it.  First of all, the legal one is not so clear cut as you characterize it.  Fair Use is very tricky, and sometimes it's hard to distinguish between infringement and fair use, and often the judgments aren't even consistent.  Some of the scenarios that have been discussed are clearly infringement, however _some_ of them are at least can be _reasonably argued_ as fair use.

And finally, copyright infringement is a tort, not a criminal violation.  It will not be determined by peers.


----------



## GMforPowergamers (Aug 30, 2009)

N0Man said:


> While you had many interesting ideas in your post, there were a few problems with some of your arguments.
> 
> First of all, the intention of copyright is to allow the owner to have a monopoly on their work for a limited time.  It was designed to prevent a competitor from profiting from your work.  Copyright only became relevant in regards to consumers because of advances in technology.
> 
> ...




look it is a crime...aka illegal you are advacating illegal action...please discuss this elsewhere this thread is about WotC sueing people some of us want to read the news and do NOT want to be bombarded with your or anyone else politcal reteric...and make no mistake this is not what the thread was about...


----------



## N0Man (Aug 30, 2009)

GMforPowergamers said:


> Noman, crino, everyone else...
> 
> if you want to support or not support illegal activity, please fork this...I am outraged at this thread...I have been trying to keep up on the news of the lawsuit...however I am being beaten over the head with your moral arguments...
> 
> remember drug dealers and drug users are victumless crimes, so is prostitution. I am sure there are other examples...but point blank I am sick of this. I am not trying to get myself booted from this thread (As I have before when these topics come up) but I do feel it is boarder line harressment for you guys to force a topic of it's rails to support your politcal agenda (Piracy is OK)...if you fork I will leave you alone, but right now you are intrudein on an informational thread...please fork it already it is 1 button away from quote...




Fair enough.  It was never my intention to derail the thread, and my apologies for inadvertently doing so.  However, I'm not "supporting" piracy here either, and the absolute assertion that it's always illegal is a characterization that is part of this big debate as well... so if you don't want the debate then I suggest you refrain from making loaded statements yourself.

 My original intent was merely to point out, in regards to this case, that the argued assumption that the ratio of downloads to sales lost is *not* 1:1.

Perhaps it would have been better to fork to discuss that in retrospect, however I naively did not expect to stir up pages of debate or get caught up in it myself.

Honestly, I think I'd prefer to just end the debate and get back on topic here anyway.  Again, sorry for contributing to the derailment.


----------



## jgerman (Aug 30, 2009)

Crothian said:


> If one thinks they are being harmed, whether true or not they are going to react in such a way to lessen that harm.  That's why it matters.




That's fine, but when it comes to the legal issues, which is what I understood to be the topic here, it doesn't matter. 



> If you have evidence that says file sharing is helpful to publishers then I'm sure there are lots of people that would love to see it.




No need to be facetious. You've not provided any evidence that it hurts publishers. You're begging the question. 

Study: P2P effect on legal music sales "not statistically distinguishable from zero" - Ars Technica
http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_June2005_final.pdf
Government study proves illegal file sharing increases music sales - TECH.BLORGE.com
washingtonpost.com: Study: File-Sharing No Threat to Music Sales

Is that enough? There's plenty more. The fact is it's not clear that file sharing hurts publishers and there is evidence to the contrary.

I made the argument earlier. Whether or not WotC suffered loss as a result of file sharing has yet to be proven. They have suffered loss, however, from their actions to 'fight' it.


----------



## Simon Atavax (Aug 30, 2009)

GMforPowergamers said:


> some of us want to read the news and do NOT want to be bombarded with your or anyone else politcal reteric...and make no mistake this is not what the thread was about...




Umm, are you new to the internet, dude?


----------



## Cadfan (Aug 30, 2009)

jgerman said:


> If it can be shown that file sharing is not harming a content producer by the most common metric used (monetary gain or loss) then it shouldn't be illegal to do so.



But that's just the thing...

1. Its not just about whether specific instances of file sharing harm "content producers" (not a fan of this buzzword).  Its about whether a specific regime of copyright law enforcement or non enforcement is beneficial overall.

2. Given that we rarely have perfect knowledge about what copyright options best benefit society, content producers, or really anyone, the real question is who gets to make decisions about what harms who.  If the test is whether a content producer is harmed, I think it is going to be quite difficult to argue that the content producer's views aren't the most likely ones to be correct.  Its basically standard capitalist reasoning from here on out- a general rule of following the content producer's interests is likely to create outcomes most favorable to the content producer.

3. And to combine the two points, even if you can conclusively show that a specific content producer made the wrong call in a specific instance, that does NOT justify tossing out the entire rule of allowing content producers to make these decisions.  You'd have to show that content producers, collectively, are less likely to make the right decisions than some other set of decision makers.  If the metric is the benefit of the content producer, I think that's going to be nigh impossible.


----------



## GMforPowergamers (Aug 30, 2009)

Simon Atavax said:


> Umm, are you new to the internet, dude?




no, but I am also not new to enworld...infact atleast once, I belive twice I have been baned from disccusions here about the morality and legality of fileshareing/pirateing...and I will tell you this seeing this type of moral decay on this site where people not only admit to breaking laws, but try to defend themselves with BS 'no one got hurt' is the worst thing I can immagin...

again if you think it should be legal go tell your congressmen/senators...if you want to brag go to a pirate web site...don't slam your ploitcal and legal views on others...becuse I am a hairs breath from pounding back...I am sick of this...you even have options...and lets not forget this BS got the whole topic put in it's own area for a while...

just fork it befor you piss the rest of us off...it isn't hard I am not asking that much...just go to another thread...it is why we have the fork buttoin for god sake...


----------



## tomBitonti (Aug 30, 2009)

Deimodius said:


> Text omitted ...
> 
> A man creates an idea. Rules to a game. He put his labour in to it, and the result was an idea that _he_ created. He decides it might have value to others. He needs a way to deliver that valuable idea to others, so he uses symbols to record the idea on pages in a physical book. Now we have the internet, and the idea can be disseminated without the need for a physical book, but the idea was still his. He put his labour into it, so it is his to sell, or not.
> 
> Text omitted ...




There is an point there that I think may be disputed, or at least clarified, and that gets at one of the points of Copyright law.

The statement "A man creates an idea" is too strong.  The nature of civilization, and of discourse, makes it very hard to have a completely new idea.  Ideas are framed in a language that has thousands of years of development, and in terms of many many other ideas.  What is due to society for the value of language and common discourse from which the idea sprang?

I thought that what was at the heart of copyright law was a compromise between allowing ideas to be freely used, so to not stifle the creation of new ideas, and between allowing control over the expression of the idea, so to promote the creation of new ideas.  Too much control, and the creation of new ideas gets to be too hard.  Too little control, and the incentive to create new ideas gets to be too small.

Also, care must be taken when discussing "ideas" and "expressions of ideas".  A young boy goes to school for magical traning and fights an evil wizard.  That is an idea.  Harry Potter going to Hogworts and fights Voldemort is an expression of that idea.


----------



## Dannager (Aug 30, 2009)

GMforPowergamers said:


> no, but I am also not new to enworld...infact atleast once, I belive twice I have been baned from disccusions here about the morality and legality of fileshareing/pirateing...and I will tell you this seeing this type of moral decay on this site where people not only admit to breaking laws, but try to defend themselves with BS 'no one got hurt' is the worst thing I can immagin...
> 
> again if you think it should be legal go tell your congressmen/senators...if you want to brag go to a pirate web site...don't slam your ploitcal and legal views on others...becuse I am a hairs breath from pounding back...I am sick of this...you even have options...and lets not forget this BS got the whole topic put in it's own area for a while...
> 
> just fork it befor you piss the rest of us off...it isn't hard I am not asking that much...just go to another thread...it is why we have the fork buttoin for god sake...



_You_ are espousing your own moral beliefs in a manner far more egregious than anyone else here has so far.

It is clear that this is an issue that you react emotionally to.  I strongly suggest not posting at all in such threads, if your wish is truly to avoid exacerbating the situation.  Making use of emotional and radicalized language is not going to move the thread back on topic.

If you feel that you _can_ post in such threads without making use of language that fuels the flames you want to put out, then please do so with caution.  You do not want a repeat of the above post.


----------



## GMforPowergamers (Aug 30, 2009)

Dannager said:


> _You_ are espousing your own moral beliefs in a manner far more egregious than anyone else here has so far.



oh trust me I am...but you know what I am asking to stop it...



> It is clear that this is an issue that you react emotionally to.



 more so then most know...this is a *BIG* hot button topic for me



> I strongly suggest not posting at all in such threads, if your wish is truly to avoid exacerbating the situation.



 here is the problem I am very intrested in the lawsuit...and have been following and discussing it the whole way without moral judgments (On the board anyway) then it gets thrown in my face in the middle of a thread and...to be honnest I am seeing red..




> Making use of emotional and radicalized language is not going to move the thread back on topic.



 but doing everything short of BEGGING for people to fork it might...again fine if you want to talk about, leave those of use who don't in peace...



> If you feel that you _can_ post in such threads without making use of language that fuels the flames you want to put out, then please do so with caution.  You do not want a repeat of the above post.




why??
 If I am being forcefeed others opionons about the moral part of pirateing, or how it is a victumless crime (OH boy does that set me off big time) or how commiting this crime helps the people who claim to be hurt by it (AKA PUTING THE VICTOM ON TRAIL) then why should I tone it down???

again if you don't want my very nast nd snarky responces to your off topic points then fork the damn thread...


edit: here is my most recent post here since it got brought back to the front page, but before the "I pirate but do no harm" and "It helps not hurts" and "People who protect there stuff suck" stared:


GMforPowergamers said:


> um...who agrees to $100,000 ?? I mean really that is more then I make in 2 years...
> 
> is this guy loaded? I can see the court handing down something like this, but why not negotiate down to a more resnable number???




want to tell me I am starting or makeing things worse there??? I bet not I was in the middle of an honnest discussion whn it got hijacked into something that I feel strongly and negativly about...infact something that riles me up...

I am not even saying don't talk about it...but don't make me sift through 3+ pages of this BS trying to get back to the damn point of the post...the lawsuits...

this thread is calledDFS--Of the WotC Court Case  NOt "How like piracy" or "Why piracy should be legal" or "Why anti piracy is bad"....go start your own thread, or fork this one...leave those of us who want updates alone...please...


in fact is that what this will take begging you to fork or stop this discussion??????????


----------



## Imban (Aug 30, 2009)

dude, just like... stop reading this thread. there's not going to be any more information on the case for another month or three because the legal system doesn't move that fast, so when you see it again in december after it's fallen off the front page for a month and a half it'll have new stuff that you care about.


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## Simon Atavax (Aug 30, 2009)

GMforPowergamers said:


> oh trust me I am...but you know what I am asking to stop it...
> . . .
> more so then most know...this is a *BIG* hot button topic for me
> . . .
> ...




Oh dear God, I just realized something! 

The emotional intensity, the broken English, the irrational pleadings . . . 

YOU are the 16-year-old kid from the Philippines! 

(cue Alfred Hitchcock music here)


----------



## Baron Opal (Aug 30, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> I think the problem is, you're assuming:
> 
> Person A wants the book
> Person A is willing to buy the book
> ...




But, Person B by pirating * did cause *a lost sale. He has a copy of the data and he did not pay for it.

If I go into Borders, look at a copy of Ptolus but I'm not willing to pay the price, stuff it under my coat and leave, I have stolen it. I have the book to read or whatever and I haven't compensated the merchant, author, whatever.

If I decide I don't want to buy Ptolus and download the files off of a torrent, I have the data and I haven't compensated RPGNow or Monte Cook.

While this is "copyright infringement" and not theft, the only real difference between the two is that in the second case the data is on my hard drive and not on my shelf.

Why is the latter acceptible but not the former? Does it really matter what my *motivation* is? Does it really matter what *form* the data takes?

I'm actually not arguing about N0man's claim about the morality of purchasing a book and acquiring a digital copy too. That, I think, is a separate argument about having data in multiple forms. 

And, yes, Simon, I run a moral game. I am a moral and honorable person. My job depends upon it. I'm sorry you find the concept of honor in the real world foolish. your loss.


----------



## jgerman (Aug 30, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> But that's just the thing...
> 
> 1. Its not just about whether specific instances of file sharing harm "content producers" (not a fan of this buzzword).  Its about whether a specific regime of copyright law enforcement or non enforcement is beneficial overall.




Which is exactly the sort of thing the studies I linked to are doing. 

Use any phrase you want, how about copyright holder. I'm not a fan of that one because it pre-supposes a right. "Publisher" probably works.



> 2. Given that we rarely have perfect knowledge about what copyright options best benefit society, content producers, or really anyone, the real question is who gets to make decisions about what harms who.  If the test is whether a content producer is harmed, I think it is going to be quite difficult to argue that the content producer's views aren't the most likely ones to be correct.  Its basically standard capitalist reasoning from here on out- a general rule of following the content producer's interests is likely to create outcomes most favorable to the content producer.




It's not difficult to argue that the publisher's views aren't correct and it's never taken as a given. A publisher has to prove damages.



> 3. And to combine the two points, even if you can conclusively show that a specific content producer made the wrong call in a specific instance, that does NOT justify tossing out the entire rule of allowing content producers to make these decisions.  You'd have to show that content producers, collectively, are less likely to make the right decisions than some other set of decision makers.  If the metric is the benefit of the content producer, I think that's going to be nigh impossible.




I think you may be off the rails a little here or at least on a different track than me. What decisions?  You mean the decision on whether or not to allow file sharing of their content?

I'm arguing that file sharing is not necessarily a harm to publishers. 

In which case the publishers have no say in whether or not it should be legal to do so. 

Copyright law is about the benefit of the public, not the publisher. That's why it's for a limited time. To encourage publishers (authors, producers, whatever ) to publish more. We aren't protecting a natural right with these laws we are setting up a situation intended to "promote the progress of science and the useful arts".

I'm arguing the general case, not about a specific publisher.

Maybe the confusion is over the bit claiming WotC is acting irrationally? That's a separate issue. Maybe I should have split the post, though it is related to the argument above.


----------



## jgerman (Aug 30, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> B
> 
> While this is "copyright infringement" and not theft, the only real difference between the two is that in the second case the data is on my hard drive and not on my shelf.




No, that's not the 'real' difference. The real difference is that in one you are necessarily depriving someone of the physical object and in the other the object remains where it is, in the same condition.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Aug 30, 2009)

jgerman said:


> No, that's not the 'real' difference. The real difference is that in one you are necessarily depriving someone of the physical object and in the other the object remains where it is, in the same condition.




I really shouldn't get involved in this again.  But this is the key, and the reason why there is so much problem with Copyright and IP these days.  Information is becoming more important to society, people are attempting to charge for information but it's a virtual impossibility to control information.

The simplest example of this is if I make up something...let's say the sentence: "The sky is blue." and I say "This sentence is mine, no one else can use it.  You must buy it from me if you want to say it, use it in your writing or anything else."

There is no way for me to control the spread of that information.  People can tell each other that sentence without every contacting me, for free, easily.  The only way I can stop people from saying that sentence is by creating laws to stop people from using it and suing them if they do.

Unfortunately(or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), technology has allowed books, movies, schematics, music, and many, many other things that used to be physical object into information in the same way that sentence is information.  And it's just as easy to copy a book as it is to say the sentence.

I still think that the entire economy will have to change to be in line with technology and that right now it is simply a matter of time.  At some point in the future, I believe that all of these things will no longer be charged for and will be entirely free.  Companies whose business involves producing this type of content will instead find alternate revenue streams.


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## Baron Opal (Aug 30, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> While this is "copyright infringement" and not theft, the only real difference between the two is that in the second case the data is on my hard drive and not on my shelf.






jgerman said:


> No, that's not the 'real' difference. The real difference is that in one you are necessarily depriving someone of the physical object and in the other the object remains where it is, in the same condition.




But that is not a meaningful difference. That copy of Ptolus is indeed still sitting in Borders, unpurchased. I still have all of the data because I down loaded it from a torrent. You're right that I haven't deprived someone of compensation for a physical object. I have deprived them of compensation for the data I now possess.

Why is it acceptible to deprive someone of compensation for creating data, a story, adventure, receipe or whatever, when there is no physical object accompaning it?


----------



## Piratecat (Aug 30, 2009)

Simon Atavax said:


> Oh dear God, I just realized something!
> 
> The emotional intensity, the broken English, the irrational pleadings . . .
> 
> ...



*I've left a warning in the original problematic post a few pages back, but just to be clear: stop the snark, people, and stop the histrionics. Jumping up on your high horse and attacking other people isn't any better than making snide comments. You know what's okay here, and I expect you to follow those guidelines.*


----------



## JohnRTroy (Aug 30, 2009)

While the debates have started again, I wanted to see if I could ask the following, especially those with legal backgrounds.

It was mentioned that we have one person who knows one of the defendants who is ignoring the suit--and I assume that person lives in the US.  Does that mean the person could be jailed for contempt of court?  Does it mean they will make a judgment in his absence and then send Sheriffs after him?

Also, I am also curious as to the following.

The award for one guilty party was $100,000.00.  Does WoTC have to collect it all, is it handled by the court system, or can they at their own discretion reduce the amount?


----------



## Nifft (Aug 30, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> But that is not a meaningful difference. That copy of Ptolus is indeed still sitting in Borders, unpurchased. I still have all of the data because I down loaded it from a torrent. You're right that I haven't deprived someone of compensation for a physical object. I have deprived them of compensation for the data I now possess.
> 
> Why is it acceptible to deprive someone of compensation for creating data, a story, adventure, receipe or whatever, when there is no physical object accompaning it?



 I think his point was not that there is a moral justification for unauthorized copying, but rather that there is a difference between unauthorized copying and theft of a physical object.

Condoning one of these acts does not require condoning the other.

Cheers, -- N


----------



## Baron Opal (Aug 30, 2009)

Nifft said:


> I think his point [is] that there is a difference between unauthorized copying and theft of a physical object.
> 
> Condoning one of these acts does not require condoning the other.




Yes. I disagree with that sentiment. Previously, the object and the data were inextricably bound. Today that isn't the case, and you can obtain the data without the object. I don't see how that absolves a person from compensating the author.


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## Stoat (Aug 30, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> Also, I am also curious as to the following.
> 
> The award for one guilty party was $100,000.00.  Does WoTC have to collect it all, is it handled by the court system, or can they at their own discretion reduce the amount?




Generally speaking, Le owes WotC $100,000.  WotC is responsible for collecting that money.  For example, they could foreclose on any property owned by the debtor, garnish his bank account or garnish his wages.  WotC could decide to cut the guy a break and write off the debt.

Le represented to the Court that he is 19 years old, unemployed and a student.  It seems unlikely that WotC will recover much of the judgment against him.

Please note that this post is not intended to provide legal advice to anybody, anywhere on any topic.  I'm just killing some time on a Sunday morning.


----------



## kenmarable (Aug 30, 2009)

So how does this thread forking thing work?

I'm guilty of if it, too, but I think this thread has gotten pretty far off track from news updates on the court case. JohnRTroy is doing a great job of posting the relevant legal documents. It's be nice to keep this thread focused on news updates and move the "is it right or wrong" discussion to a new thread.


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## jgerman (Aug 30, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> But that is not a meaningful difference. That copy of Ptolus is indeed still sitting in Borders, unpurchased. I still have all of the data because I down loaded it from a torrent.




Again, it is a meaningful difference. It's the reason the distinction is made, it doesn't get more meaningful than that. 

If you steal a physical object from me you have deprived me of physical access to that book, where if you copy a file of mine you have not. 



> You're right that I haven't deprived someone of compensation for a physical object. I have deprived them of compensation for the data I now possess.
> 
> Why is it acceptible to deprive someone of compensation for creating data, a story, adventure, receipe or whatever, when there is no physical object accompaning it?




That's a separate argument. 

Earlier you were trying to hand-wave away the difference. It's an important difference.


----------



## AllisterH (Aug 30, 2009)

Nifft said:


> I think his point was not that there is a moral justification for unauthorized copying, but rather that there is a difference between unauthorized copying and theft of a physical object.
> 
> Condoning one of these acts does not require condoning the other.
> 
> Cheers, -- N




Isn't the reason why the person took the book WASN'T because of the physical production of the book but because of the ideas/words contained in the book?


----------



## JohnRTroy (Aug 30, 2009)

kenmarable said:


> So how does this thread forking thing work?
> 
> I'm guilty of if it, too, but I think this thread has gotten pretty far off track from news updates on the court case. JohnRTroy is doing a great job of posting the relevant legal documents. It's be nice to keep this thread focused on news updates and move the "is it right or wrong" discussion to a new thread.




Well, technically this thread was dead for a few months.

After the discussion ends, it will likely be dead for a while.  I don't plan on checking again for at least a few more months--those documents cost pennies per page view and I think the earliest I'd bother checking again would be around the holidays (November/December).  I might just end up making a new thread when I do find anything.

I just feel like occasional updates because, heck, you always hear lawsuits announced but you're less likely to hear about the outcomes.


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## Baron Opal (Aug 30, 2009)

jgerman said:


> Again, it is a meaningful difference. It's the reason the distinction is made, it doesn't get more meaningful than that.
> 
> If you steal a physical object from me you have deprived me of physical access to that book, where if you copy a file of mine you have not.




The only reason there is a difference is due to current technology. To gain access to the data we no longer need to download the data in book form using a printing press, we can just access it electronicly as a file. Since it isn't in a physical form we need to redefine the "theft" as "copyright infringement" since the data has been distributed without compensation without the loss of a physical medium. It is important only in its novelty and by asking the questions of how do we control and regulate the sale of information.



> ...you were trying to hand-wave away the difference. It's an important difference.




You're right in that I don't see it as a meaningful difference. The end result is that the author isn't compensated for his effort. That is the crux of my argument. Again I ask -



			
				Baron Opal said:
			
		

> Why is it acceptible to deprive someone of compensation for creating data, a story, adventure, receipe or whatever, when there is no physical object accompaning it?


----------



## malraux (Aug 30, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> Why is it acceptible to deprive someone of compensation for creating data, a story, adventure, receipe or whatever, when there is no physical object accompaning it?




Nitpick, recipes are not copyrightable.


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## Kwalish Kid (Aug 30, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> But that is not a meaningful difference. That copy of Ptolus is indeed still sitting in Borders, unpurchased. I still have all of the data because I down loaded it from a torrent. You're right that I haven't deprived someone of compensation for a physical object. I have deprived them of compensation for the data I now possess.
> 
> Why is it acceptible to deprive someone of compensation for creating data, a story, adventure, receipe or whatever, when there is no physical object accompaning it?



If it is not acceptable to let uncreative work go unrewarded, then the solution does not have to be to tie creative work to monopoly rents in the form of copyright. Only in a specific kind of state imposed systematic deviation from free exchange is downloading the content from a book equivalent to denying compensation to a creative artist. Now we shouldn't ignore that this is the current context in which most of us live, but we also shouldn't ignore that we can change the context rather than simply changing our behaviour within the context.


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## jgerman (Aug 30, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> The only reason there is a difference is due to current technology. To gain access to the data we no longer need to download the data in book form using a printing press, we can just access it electronicly as a file. Since it isn't in a physical form we need to redefine the "theft" as "copyright infringement" since the data has been distributed without compensation without the loss of a physical medium. It is important only in its novelty and by asking the questions of how do we control and regulate the sale of information.




Yes, technology has changed the game as it tends to do. We're not redefining theft as copyright infringement. Theft still exists in it's original intuitive form. The intuitive notion of theft DOES NOT work for copyright infringement. It's not "only important in novelty".



> You're right in that I don't see it as a meaningful difference. The end result is that the author isn't compensated for his effort. That is the crux of my argument. Again I ask -
> 
> 
> 
> > Why is it acceptible to deprive someone of compensation for creating data, a story, adventure, receipe or whatever, when there is no physical object accompaning it?




And again I tell you: that is a different question. That may be the crux of your argument, but one of the premises: that there is no difference between copyright infringement and theft, is false.

There is a major difference: in the only arena that counts.. legally, and legally there is a penalty for copyright infringement so your question doesn't make any sense.

You may not choose to recognize the difference, but the law does.


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## Starbuck_II (Aug 30, 2009)

JohnRTroy said:


> The award for one guilty party was $100,000.00. Does WoTC have to collect it all, is it handled by the court system, or can they at their own discretion reduce the amount?



 I see the money going to ther lawyers not WotC. But I assume they will be like Student loans.
His credit till he pays back will be crud.

After all, that is why most people ask for huge sums: not because that is how much they need, but the fact that Lawyers are expensive.


----------



## JohnRTroy (Aug 30, 2009)

Starbuck_II said:


> I see the money going to ther lawyers not WotC. But I assume they will be like Student loans.
> His credit till he pays back will be crud.
> 
> After all, that is why most people ask for huge sums: not because that is how much they need, but the fact that Lawyers are expensive.




Actually, if you read the judgement carefully, it says legal fees will each be paid by their own parties.  So WoTC is paying their lawyers, and the defendant is paying his own (which being pro se, means none).  So right now the only award is damages due to the violation and potential lost income for WoTC.



> 6. Each party shall bear its or his own attorneys' fees, costs, and expenses.




That's why I am wondering what WoTC will end up doing.  Clearly, this guy needs to pay some restitution, but I wonder if WoTC will ask for the full amount or might later make it smaller just to make sure the kid doesn't end up bankrupt.


----------



## qstor (Aug 30, 2009)

*puts on lawyers hat*



JohnRTroy said:


> It was mentioned that we have one person who knows one of the defendants who is ignoring the suit--and I assume that person lives in the US.  Does that mean the person could be jailed for contempt of court?  Does it mean they will make a judgment in his absence and then send Sheriffs after him?




I think someone mentioned this before. People can't be jailed in the US in civil cases. 

Contempt of court - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

See the bottom under US

They'll take a default judgment against the person.

Default judgment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The US Marshals could seize their property to pay the debt.


[quote/]
The award for one guilty party was $100,000.00.  Does WoTC have to collect it all, is it handled by the court system, or can they at their own discretion reduce the amount?[/quote]

They can reduce it if they want too. But I doubt they will. They've gone through this much work.

Mike


----------



## Starbuck_II (Aug 30, 2009)

Yeah, we got rid of debters Prisons. The fools!


----------



## qstor (Aug 30, 2009)

Starbuck_II said:


> I see the money going to ther lawyers not WotC. But I assume they will be like Student loans.
> His credit till he pays back will be crud.




Its up to the creditor whether they want to report the judgment to the credit reporting companies. A lot of 'junk' gets reported to credit reporting companies. In the U.S. people have the right to challenge the accuarcy of the information.

Mike


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## Imban (Aug 30, 2009)

Simon Atavax said:


> Oh dear God, I just realized something!
> 
> The emotional intensity, the broken English, the irrational pleadings . . .
> 
> ...




You know, obviously this was just a snarky response, but I find it sort of telling that you're basically accusing someone of being a Filipino because he's dumb.

I mean, I used to chat with said kid from the Philippines who's being sued by WotC now on basically a daily basis and he fits... pretty much none of what you just listed.



			
				Baron Opal said:
			
		

> (snip... man, everything)




Alright, here's a clear example. Say I, being a dishonourable scoundrel, the lowest of villains, and the surest of blackguards, want to provide a comrade of mine with a new video game to try out because I think that he may like it. The game has a demo, but I am a blackguard and wrongdoing is my forte.

Now, in order to provide him with a copy, I could ambush a shipping truck, callously murder the deliverymen, and retrieve a copy to bring to my comrade. Alternatively, I could send him a copy of my disc using the internet messenger of my choice. Alternatively, I could sneak through the darkest night to his home and deliver my disc to him in person, that he may play it for a few hours while I nap to regain my strength for more villainy.

Regardless of these, I discover that my comrade is brainless and without soul, and detests the game! In fact, he only played the introductory dungeon from the demo before quitting and uninstalling it. While contemplating whether or not to execute him for his folly, I might also reflect upon the alternative methods I could have used to allow him to come to that conclusion.

Now, for chaos and evil, clearly nothing can top murdering a deliveryman and stealing the product! I've not only killed someone - unimportant, really, he was just a retail peon - I've removed a physical product from circulation that a store could easily have sold to someone willing to purchase it. Clearly if I was to act as a mere courier-boy and deliver the disc to him, this would be neither unlawful nor malicious, at least in most cases. So what of the case where I delivered it to him over the internet?!

At this thought I might stroke my goatee and consider. It is surely unlawful, as all save the inept and deceitful know, but is it truly villainous? Surely it is *less* harmful than shivving an unsuspecting delivery-boy and taking another copy of the disc from his cooling hands - I mean, I'd be setting GameStop back some time to hire and train a new employee, too! - but is it *more* harmful than conveying the disc in person?

After pondering for a while, I would contest not. While it is true that I was not deprived of my own access to the game while my comrade tested it, in the end there would have been very little practical difference from instructing him to download the demo, except for how this process of piracy was somewhat more appealing to him. 

...as an aside, it is now that I should mention that my comrade of whom I have been speaking so long is actually a Slaad. In fact, being a Slaad, he probably wouldn't have paid for it anyway, because funding organized systems like corporations doesn't really... work for him. Alignment issues, you understand? I can't tell you for certain, of course, because Slaadi are notorious individualists and the truly chaotic thing to do might have been to giant frog his way to GameStop and purchase it on a whim.

So in practice, while the decision to send him a file over the internet would really work a modron into a babbling, steam-emitting rage at how I scoff at the laws of the country and proper protocol, it's not doing the direct harm of thievery.

(...I really need a Snidely Whiplash emoticon for this post.)

On a serious note, the only way that some people rationalize that it does is through a strange conception, that every consumer necessarily represents a potential sale at the asking price. While piracy certainly highlights that this is not the case, basic economics also does - the lower your asking price, the *more consumers you will get*, almost without exception. For instance, many people have some interest in seeing a movie, but not enough interest to watch it in theatres, so they wait for the movie to be aired on television, where it is in and of itself free, as it is included as part of a cost that they are already paying regardless.

For them, the asking price of the movie - say, $10 - is higher than the price that they value the movie at - say, $2 - so there simply is no sale to be lost unless the asking price dips to $2 or less.


----------



## ProfessorCirno (Aug 31, 2009)

Simon Atavax said:


> Oh dear God, I just realized something!
> 
> The emotional intensity, the broken English, the irrational pleadings . . .
> 
> ...




Like Imban, I know and occasionally talk to the person you refer to, and he fits none of those descriptives.



Also, anti-invasive DRM isn't pro-piracy.  my point has never been that piracy is good.  In fact, that's the opposite of my point.  My point is, *IT'S NOT THAT SIMPLE.*  Piracy isn't inherently "ALWAYS GOOD" or "ALWAYS BAD."

Quite frankly, this thread is reading less like "D&D court case" and less like "Discussion about piracy" and more like "LAW VS CHAOS: ALIGNMENT DISCUSSION."

I maintain my neutrality


----------



## Baron Opal (Aug 31, 2009)

Imban said:


> For instance, many people have some interest in seeing a movie, but not enough interest to watch it in theatres, so they wait for the movie to be aired on television, where it is in and of itself free, as it is included as part of a cost that they are already paying regardless.
> 
> For them, the asking price of the movie - say, $10 - is higher than the price that they value the movie at - say, $2 - so there simply is no sale to be lost unless the asking price dips to $2 or less.




If you use the good or service, you should have paid for it. It doesn't matter what you feel the value is. If you don't think it's worth it, live without.

The ticket price for the movie is $10.
In six months it can be rented for $2.
In a year it can be seen for free on TV.
If you want to see the movie _now_, you have to pay $10. I think this is more analogus to someone sneaking into the theater and seeing it for free now rather than waiting the year to see it for free later.

If all it really is is demoing a book it wouldn't bother me. I'm willing to take N0man at his word that that is what he is doing. I don't think that is what is happening on the larger scale. I've come across too many people who sucked down every song they could off of Napster and burned their own musical library. I've known too many people who have seen movies before the premier because they downloaded it off of warez sites. "Why should I pay for it when I can get it for free?"

I think I'm done.


----------



## Voadam (Aug 31, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> But, Person B by pirating * did cause *a lost sale. He has a copy of the data and he did not pay for it.
> 
> If I go into Borders, look at a copy of Ptolus but I'm not willing to pay the price, stuff it under my coat and leave, I have stolen it. I have the book to read or whatever and I haven't compensated the merchant, author, whatever.
> 
> ...




Wait. 

My friends bought GURPS, various Palladium games, Shadowrun, WFRP, Star Frontiers, Rolemaster, Paranoia, Vampire and Mage and ran games four our group back in the 80s and 90s. I played in those games, borrowed and read their books, learned the systems, made characters, etc. I never bought any of those books (Or some only years afterwards).

I gained data from those books. I now have ideas those books presented.

I never paid for any of it.

I am not a thief.

. . .

Gaining the ideas/data without paying for them is not illegal.

Sharing a book is not illegal.

Reading a book the ideas are copied into your head and you get them.

Now if I copy the ideas down in a non infringing manner (memorizing, rewriting in my own words, fair use copying, etc.) and return the book then I have a copy of the data that is non infringing. I have not wronged my friend or legally wronged the copywrite holder.

If I copy the ideas down in an infringing manner and return it then I have a copy and violated copywrite. My friend still has his book, however. I have not harmed my friend. The author/publisher has the copywrite that has been violated.

If I take my friend's book then I have stolen his book. I have not, however, violated the copywrite holder's legal rights even if he loses a potential sale.

If I sneak onto my friend's computer and secretly send his file to mine (instead of sending a copy and leaving his original file behind). I have stolen his electronic copy of the book. But I again have not violated the copywrite holder's copywrite.

Motivation seems irrelevant to me. Format seems irrelevant to me. 

The distinction is between copying (some of which is prohibited and some is not) and taking.


----------



## pawsplay (Sep 1, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> If you use the good or service, you should have paid for it. It doesn't matter what you feel the value is. If you don't think it's worth it, live without.




How much does it cost you to read Shakespeare's Hamlet? (rhetorical pause) That's right, approximately nothing, apart from time, enegy, and a few bytes of bandwidth. Now suppose tomorrow, Walt Disney Inc. was granted a copyright on Hamlet. Suddenly, they want $25 every time someone publishes or distributes a copy. Does this scenario sound strange?

Well, if you look at the facts, there is no difference between that and current copyright law, say, for the PHBII. A work exists, someone has been granted the copyright, and you have to pay. "But wait," you say. "It is different." And you are correct. The PHBII's copyright belongs to WotC by what most people consider a reasonable set of rules that provide benefits to our society by entitling them to a royalty. Nonetheless, infringing is not theft... it is infringing, just as posting Hamlet on Gutenberg would be infringement in the imaginary and unlikely circumstances I put forth above. 

Let's say you have a copyright that lasts for 75 years. Distributing it 74 years, 364 days into its existence, that's infringment. Distributing it 75 years and one day is not. Did it suddenly become moral and ethical to distribute it after 75 years, whereas it was immoral and evil the day before? Now, what if I told you that the original copyright was assigned to Company X under duress? What if I further told you that the copyrighted work was a book on psychology and philosophy that would help thousands of people, and its publisher and copyright were purchased solely so that Company X could mothball it in favor of their own, slightly better selling but inferior, book?

There are many different ways of solving ethical problems, but very few of them are going to come up with solutions that apply to most, much less every situation.

A Utilitarian might ask - "Will more good or harm come of distributing this work?"
A rules utilitarian might ask - "What is the value of the copyright law, and what are the consequences to the rule of law in general if I choose to ignore the copyright law because I find that law objectionable?"
A virtue ethicist might ask - "What kind of person would I become if I distributed this PDF?"
A Kantian ethicist might ask - "Should I wish for everyone to distribute this PDF in such a situation? Should WotC wish that everyone would pull legal distribution of all PDFs? If the answers are no and no, how should everyone agree to resolve such dilemmas?"

This is a very different question than, "Did Person B dstribute work H in such a fashion that it appears to go against Law Y?"

And right in the middle is the question, "What is just? What is the basis of this law? Is this law supportable under our view of citizenship, enterepeneurship, and artistry? How do we know if a given law should be considered invalid?"


----------



## Cadfan (Sep 1, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Nonetheless, infringing is not theft... it is infringing, just as posting Hamlet on Gutenberg would be infringement in the imaginary and unlikely circumstances I put forth above.



The reason you guys are getting pushback is because reasonable statements like yours appear to be the first in a long chain of argumentation that seems to go like-

1. Its not _theft_, its _infringement_. That is _totally_ different.
2. Blah blah blah
3. Blah
4. More blah
5. Steal underpants
6. ...
7. WOOKIES! On ENDOR! That doesn't make any SENSE!
8. Therefore its ok to download copyrighted stuff we haven't bought, or at least its wrong to criticize people who do.


----------



## Storm Raven (Sep 1, 2009)

Silverblade The Ench said:


> Question, since I didn't read the court documents:
> How do they know the _accused _actually put these items up on P2P themselves?
> How can they prove that someone didn't hack their PC and take the files, or a friend using that PC, considering how many folks' WIFI networks aren't secured, PCs that are shared, and how many folk's computers are riddled with malware?
> Or that the security system has itself been broken..rather neat way to cover your tracks by putting Santa Claus or some poor schlub as the actual ID, eh?




That would be an affirmative defense that the defendant would need to prove once the plaintiff made their prima facie case. In other words, if the plaintiff has to demonstrate it is more likely than not that the defendant did it (by showing that it was his .pdf that was posted) and if the defendant wants to claim that someone else did it, then it is up to him to produce evidence that would back up that claim.


----------



## Storm Raven (Sep 1, 2009)

thelettuceman said:


> I think a lot of people are just plain pissed off that downloading a pirated copy of WHATEVER is so easy.
> 
> Then again, there's nothing to stop me from going into a book store (particularly bigger ones that encourage you to sit down and read), flip through a rules book and transcribe what I want from it into a notebook.  No one would look at me twice, and no one would care that I'm doing it to bring additional materials to my game.




Try it. I have a feeling that in most book stores you'd get kicked off the premises pretty quickly.


----------



## Storm Raven (Sep 1, 2009)

ProfessorCirno said:


> Again, there is a difference between piracy and *identity theft*.
> 
> When someone pirates your goods, _your name is still on them_.  They are still spreading your works.  What you are suggesting is drastically different from that.




Not really. The right to control how your work is distributed (i.e. the right you have to prevent others from appropriating your work as their own by asserting their authoriship of it) stems from copyright. The fact that you can make a fuss when someone removes your name from your work and puts their own on it is part and parcel of copyright.

Just because you think one is cool and the other isn't doesn't make them different.


----------



## Storm Raven (Sep 1, 2009)

N0Man said:


> You're right, that's an extremely faulty example, since stealing a DVD deprives them of the use of it (to actually sell).  If you want an analogy, it would be someone downloading a DVD rip of the movie, and then going to Best Buy the next day and buying it.
> 
> The problem with that analogy is that it's really hard to see what the negative impact on anyone is if you did this aside from annoying people who just don't like the fact that you did, on principle.




Your neighbor has a bare dirt back yard. For your own convenience, you often cut through his back yard even though he does not want you to do this. Have you harmed him or not?

Suppose to keep you out he erects a fence around his property, with a pair of gates allowing traverse, through which he only allows people who pay him a fee to enter. Has he wronged you?


----------



## Nifft (Sep 1, 2009)

thelettuceman said:


> Then again, there's nothing to stop me from going into a book store (particularly bigger ones that encourage you to sit down and read), flip through a rules book and transcribe what I want from it into a notebook.






Storm Raven said:


> Try it. I have a feeling that in most book stores you'd get kicked off the premises pretty quickly.




Barnes & Nobles won't. Many of their stores have a whole cafe section just so people can sit, read their books, and drink their (overpriced) coffee.

I've seen several people doing just this: a book on one side, a notebook on the other. I assume they're generally doing research for schoolwork, though, since I don't recall ever seeing an RPG book being used.

None of them got kicked out, quickly or otherwise.

Cheers, -- N


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## Storm Raven (Sep 1, 2009)

Stoat said:


> Generally speaking, Le owes WotC $100,000.  WotC is responsible for collecting that money.  For example, they could foreclose on any property owned by the debtor, garnish his bank account or garnish his wages.  WotC could decide to cut the guy a break and write off the debt.
> 
> Le represented to the Court that he is 19 years old, unemployed and a student.  It seems unlikely that WotC will recover much of the judgment against him.




In a typical jurisdiction, WotC will have 20 years to collect on the judgment. Le could earn quite a bit of money. I wouldn't be surprised if WotC attmpted to garnish all his future earnings for the full time period, or entered into a payment agreement that accomplishes substantially the same thing.


----------



## Storm Raven (Sep 1, 2009)

Nifft said:


> Barnes & Nobles won't. Many of their stores have a whole cafe section just so people can sit, read their books, and drink their (overpriced) coffee.




Hence, _most_. As in, not all.

However, if you sat down and started copying verbatim a book, I think even Barnes & Noble would have problems with that.


----------



## Obryn (Sep 1, 2009)

Storm Raven said:


> Hence, _most_. As in, not all.
> 
> However, if you sat down and started copying verbatim a book, I think even Barnes & Noble would have problems with that.



Honestly, I doubt anyone would notice.  Now, if I had a laptop and a hand-scanner, on the other hand... 

-O


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## ProfessorCirno (Sep 1, 2009)

Nifft said:


> Barnes & Nobles won't. Many of their stores have a whole cafe section just so people can sit, read their books, and drink their (overpriced) coffee.
> 
> I've seen several people doing just this: a book on one side, a notebook on the other. I assume they're generally doing research for schoolwork, though, since I don't recall ever seeing an RPG book being used.
> 
> ...




Yep, I've done it.  The research part with the notebook, that is.  Haven't been kicked out yet ;p


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## Nifft (Sep 1, 2009)

Storm Raven said:


> Hence, _most_. As in, not all.
> 
> However, if you sat down and started copying verbatim a book, I think even Barnes & Noble would have problems with that.



 I've seen people sit there for hours and hours, with a stack of papers that could be a verbatim copy. The bookstore doesn't look at what you're writing down, so they cannot tell the difference. One dude might very well be making a "verbatim copy".

But hey, the rest of us are only speaking from experience.

Cheers, -- N

PS: (_Pssst! If you go into any library, you'll see photocopy machines! You must destroy all of them for the moral health of humanity!_)


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## Scribble (Sep 1, 2009)

Nifft said:


> I've seen people sit there for hours and hours, with a stack of papers that could be a verbatim copy. The bookstore doesn't look at what you're writing down, so they cannot tell the difference. One dude might very well be making a "verbatim copy".
> 
> But hey, the rest of us are only speaking from experience.
> 
> ...




I think for the most part, (especially in the big chains) the guy getting paid low wages to lug books around doesn't really care what you're doing, so long as it doesn't get him in direct trouble (and especially if doing something about it will create more work for him.)

The guy who is that guy's boss, and spends most of his time in his office doing paperwork, might have more to say about your sitting and copying the book verbatim. 

but who really knows.


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## pawsplay (Sep 2, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> The reason you guys are getting pushback is because reasonable statements like yours appear to be the first in a long chain of argumentation that seems to go like-
> 
> 1. Its not _theft_, its _infringement_. That is _totally_ different.
> 2. Blah blah blah
> ...




I haven't made that argument. I am just refuting the equally silly argument that leads to, "Therefore, it's okay to threaten teenagers with prison time and $100,000 judgments for sharing files with their friends under circumstances that in many countries qualifies as equivalent to the doctrine of fair use." 

You wouldn't shiv someone's grandma, would you? Then why would you _LET SOMEONE READ A PDF OVER YOUR SHOULDER WHO HASN'T PAID FOR IT?_ Deviltry, no less. 

I'm really tired of people equating absolute morality with what are necessarily arbitrary prerogatives created by copyright law. There are ways to talk about what should be done that don't devolve into "Infringing is stealing, exactly like stealing, and stealing is wrong, therefore every C&D letter is holy writ."


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## AllisterH (Sep 2, 2009)

Nifft said:


> I've seen people sit there for hours and hours, with a stack of papers that could be a verbatim copy. The bookstore doesn't look at what you're writing down, so they cannot tell the difference. One dude might very well be making a "verbatim copy".
> 
> But hey, the rest of us are only speaking from experience.
> 
> ...




Um, that's a weird argument.

If this was legal, then you could go down you your local kinko's and get any book in its entirety photocpied.

There's an implicit understanding most publishers of books work under. Namely, that their readers will and do copy a few pages out of any published work.

It's wholesale copying of a book which any publisher will frown on.


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## jeffh (Sep 2, 2009)

AllisterH said:


> Um, that's a weird argument.
> 
> If this was legal, then you could go down you your local kinko's and get any book in its entirety photocpied.
> 
> ...



Who said _anything_ about whether it was legal? All anyone is saying is that it's (a) possible, and (b) in practise, unlikely to get you kicked out of a B&N or other big chain bookstore. 

Bad enough so many people here are confusing what's legal with what's _moral_, without people confusing what's legal with what's _possible_ as well.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Sep 2, 2009)

At least in Germany, but I think in most countries, there are regulations that add some cost to CDs, DVDs or video and audio cassettes that is used to pay off the potential of people multiplying and sharing copyrighted work, be it by recording TV or burning a CD copy for a friend.

An approach for dealing with copyright in the future might be to extend this, too. In Germany, I think this is sometimes to refered as a "culture flatrate". 

Everyone pays a monthly or yearly fee that is used to pay off IP creators, and everyone can freely share. Of course, the challenges are ensuring that there is a fair way to determine how to split the money, and that the fee is large enough to cover all the IP creators. So it might remain problematic, but I am not that familiar with the specific suggestions. I think there are still concepts for paying for individual products - like a CD in a music shop. And some say it would just be a supplementary system and live a fringe life.

I generally thing that subscription based services to _access_ downloads might be the way of the future for digital media. You pay a fee each months and can download X media titles per month. One you downloaded them, they are yours. Maybe if you somehow lose them, you can get them back even if you no longer pay for the service (or you repay for the service and already downloaded packages do not count against your limits). 

The challenge of every approach is to balance the chance for the creators of IP to get payed for their work and the interests of the customer for easy access. 
Especially since probably both customer and the IP creators want too much for themselves.


----------



## Baron Opal (Sep 2, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> I'm really tired of people equating absolute morality with what are necessarily arbitrary prerogatives created by copyright law.




I'm really tired of people denying that they aren't downloading libraries of books, music and movies from the internet so they can play without paying.

*sigh*

Here's the thing:

I'm sure that there are several* people who are obtaining files just to give them the once-over, like browsing in a bookstore. I don't have a problem with that. I know that there are several* people who are obtaining files so that they don't have to pay for them. That I have a problem with.

The number of files downloaded is so massive I find it disingenuous to hear that it has no effect on sales. For the PHB 2 the number of download is an order of magnitude greater than the books sold. Again, I'm sure there a number of people who just previewed it. Some downloaded it just to stash in a hard drive next to their copy of Corel Draw and Oracle that they never use either. I don't particularly like that, but they're an example of Imban's "not a lost sale". 

Then there are the people who download it because they didn't want to pay retail price. They use the data and they found a way around paying for it. That's wrong. Those are lost sales. 

Photocopying a couple pages out of a book for reference out of a library? That's fine.

Downloading an entire, just published text so that you don't have to pay the cover price? Not okay.

Where do you think the line should be?

* For some value greater than 1 and less than "most".


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## jgerman (Sep 2, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> The number of files downloaded is so massive I find it disingenuous to hear that it has no effect on sales. For the PHB 2 the number of download is an order of magnitude greater than the books sold.




You can find it disingenuous all you want, but you're doing so despite evidence to the contrary. You've been linked to studies earlier in this thread that indicate that file sharing has no effect on sales, and a few that indicate that it has a positive effect. 

You don't know what effect it had, you're making assumptions that aren't grounded in fact.


----------



## Nikosandros (Sep 2, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> At least in Germany, but I think in most countries, there are regulations that add some cost to CDs, DVDs or video and audio cassettes that is used to pay off the potential of people multiplying and sharing copyrighted work, be it by recording TV or burning a CD copy for a friend.




In Italy there is a similar tax.


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## Baron Opal (Sep 2, 2009)

jgerman said:


> You've been linked to studies earlier in this thread that indicate that file sharing has no effect on sales, and a few that indicate that it has a positive effect.




That's a good point. I'll give them a critical look. Part of my job is evaluating studies to screen for special interest bias so this should be interesting.


----------



## ShadoWWW (Sep 2, 2009)

I hope there will be a substitute for PDF soon. 

I guess there are options to do it: 

Release it via DDI. This would be great. WotC would have maximal control for that and DDI would get more subscribers. 

Many buyers of PDF buy hard cover as well. It would be great if there would be a code in PDF which would serve like a  discount coupon for hard cover book. This would increase sale of books and if somebody put the PDF to share, there would be definetely somebody who use the pirate code and disclose the source very soon. 

The discount coupon would be really useful if it would be attached to Kindle document format (instead of PDF) so Amazon would give the discount to hard cover books ordered via Amazon and earn more money this way.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Sep 2, 2009)

ShadoWWW said:


> I hope there will be a substitute for PDF soon.
> 
> I guess there are options to do it:
> 
> ...



A big interest in PDFs exists for out-of-print books from previous editions. I am not sure anyone would want to subscribe to DDI just for that. Though maybe the basic facilities of DDI can be used to create access. Still, a problem remains - the digital book needs to be in a form that makes piracy hard to impossible, and that can hardly be guaranteed without considerably reducing the usability of the books, like having to be always online for reading.


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## clearstream (Sep 2, 2009)

A quick thought. Since the crunch isn't generally protected (save in the form presented per normal copyright) if someone wanted to reproduce the mechanics of PHB2 and use them that'd be hard to stop. (I'm not commenting on the desirability of doing so.)

OTOH the fluff is generally protected through the use of distinctive names (tiefling, eladrin, Faerun, etc) or less distinctive names in specific contexts.

It's kind of amusing that Fluff is more protected than Crunch 

-vk


----------



## wedgeski (Sep 2, 2009)

Dannager said:


> Huh, this is an interesting idea.  As DM, you have a certain amount of authority to control what is and isn't allowed, and leveraging that authority to prevent harmful piracy is compelling.
> 
> I wonder if this idea would catch on with DMs - it keeps your game on the moral up-and-up as well as helping the industry out.



I'm jumping six pages of thread here but let me just say that I do have this policy in my "Ground Rules" document.

Now, I can't, shouldn't, and don't have any right to dictate what my players do off the table, but if someone turns up with a printed version of a book I know they don't have, we're going to have words about it.

It's not realistically enforcable, but it is a position statement, and that's the best I can do.


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## AllisterH (Sep 2, 2009)

jeffh said:


> Who said _anything_ about whether it was legal? All anyone is saying is that it's (a) possible, and (b) in practise, unlikely to get you kicked out of a B&N or other big chain bookstore.
> 
> Bad enough so many people here are confusing what's legal with what's _moral_, without people confusing what's legal with what's _possible_ as well.




Perhaps I read it wrong but Nifft seemed to be implying that copying books were legal since you could do it in a bookstore and not be kicked out. If he was not saying this , I apologize for mischaracterizing his statement.

re: Copyright Tax

Yeah, there is something similar in Canada. I assume that this would be the standard world-wide.


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## freyar (Sep 2, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> The number of files downloaded is so massive I find it disingenuous to hear that it has no effect on sales. For the PHB 2 the number of download is an order of magnitude greater than the books sold.




To be accurate, the 10:1 ratio for piracy to sales counted PDF sales only (here's the link to the discussion of Morrus's interview with Greg Leeds).  Whether it changes the argument or not is a different question, but let's keep things clear.


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## Voadam (Sep 2, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> Then there are the people who download it because they didn't want to pay retail price. They use the data and they found a way around paying for it. That's wrong. Those are lost sales.




Then there are those who use the books of others in their group, use the data, and never pay for it themselves. Those seem to be the same kind of "lost sale" as acquiring free copies, but not infringing and not wrong.

If the downloads were a pure lend service, (only one copy exists, just used by different people at different times) that would not be copywrite infringement and the copywrite holders would still "lose" those sales.

Further, these would only be lost sales if the person using the data would actually buy the book if they could not get it for free instead of doing without it.

I don't want to pay retail price for books. I buy cheap legal pdfs and used books, I borrow books from friends and the library, I give book suggestions when family members ask me what I'd like for a birthday gift. I found multiple ways to get around paying retail price for books and still use the data. I am not doing something wrong.


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## Nifft (Sep 2, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Still, a problem remains - the digital book needs to be in a form that makes piracy hard to impossible, and that can hardly be guaranteed without considerably reducing the usability of the books, like having to be always online for reading.



 IMHO, the iTunes store shows all that's necessary is for legal purchase be *slightly more convenient* than piracy (and not punitively expensive).

Sure, some people will still choose unauthorized copying, but that's just how life is. Physical stores contend with shoplifters by taking reasonable measures to prevent shoplifting, and then *pricing in theft* (because making a store theft-proof would also make it customer-proof).

I've got some ideas on convenience features for legal purchasers, if WotC is interested in trying some carrot-centric tactics.

Cheers, -- N


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## Nifft (Sep 2, 2009)

freyar said:


> To be accurate, the 10:1 ratio for piracy to sales counted PDF sales only (here's the link to the discussion of Morrus's interview with Greg Leeds).  Whether it changes the argument or not is a different question, but let's keep things clear.



 I wish we had access to Amazon's sales numbers for 4e core books & gift sets.

We know the approximate date of the leaked PDFs hitting the internet. If we could see 4e's pre-order volume before, during, and after that period, I think it would be illuminating.

Cheers, -- N


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## Baron Opal (Sep 2, 2009)

Nifft said:
			
		

> We know the approximate date of the leaked PDFs hitting the internet. If we could see 4e's pre-order volume before, during, and after that period, I think it would be illuminating.




Indeed, that would be great.



Voadam said:


> Then there are those who use the books of others in their group, use the data, and never pay for it themselves. Those seem to be the same kind of "lost sale" as acquiring free copies, but not infringing and not wrong.
> 
> I don't want to pay retail price for books. I buy cheap legal pdfs and used books, I borrow books from friends and the library, I give book suggestions when family members ask me what I'd like for a birthday gift. I found multiple ways to get around paying retail price for books and still use the data. I am not doing something wrong.




No, you're not.

Do you honestly not see my point?


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## Storm Raven (Sep 2, 2009)

Nifft said:


> PS: (_Pssst! If you go into any library, you'll see photocopy machines! You must destroy all of them for the moral health of humanity!_)




Libraries (in the U.S. at least) are supposed to take steps so that photocopier use by patrons doesn't exceed the bounds of fair use. _See_ 17 U.S.C. § 108.


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## Cadfan (Sep 2, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> That's a good point. I'll give them a critical look. Part of my job is evaluating studies to screen for special interest bias so this should be interesting.



Presuming its the "german students" study that was so big and well known, its not so much that the study is "biased" per se.  Its more that the study investigates whether short term (a few month long) increase in the availability and rate of music downloads is correlated with short term variation in music sales.  And then it extrapolates from that to make claims about the overall extent to which music downloading affects music sales.

1. Its not clear to me that short term variation in the rate of music downloads versus the rate of music sales is actually a good base from which to extrapolate information about the overall effect of music piracy on music sales.  To give you an example, suppose that I could prove that for three months out of the year sales of music on CD spike to a high point.  I then prove to you that sales of vinyl barely moved at all during this time period, and argued that the availability of music on CD therefore has no effect and has had no effect on the sales of vinyl.  That would be kind of a dumb argument, wouldn't it?  The purchasers of CDs have already shifted from vinyl to CD, and there's little reason to think that they're regularly choosing between CDs and vinyl on a purchase by purchase basis.  The delta effect of sales of CDs on sales of vinyl already happened, and now we're dealing with a stable environment in which the new media has already crushed the old one, and variations in the new media take place without causing further effect.  Music downloading could be the same way- the fact that music downloaders do more of it in certain months could have minimal effect on whether they use alternatives.  It could be simple time shifting.

2. The author is affiliated with Cato.  I'm not an expert on music retail.  But in my own field, I have a degree of expertise, and I am familiar with Cato's publications.  There's about a 65% chance that a Cato publication will be utterly moronic drivel.  There's also about a 35% chance that it will be an intelligent and worthwhile investigation of an area of public policy that is too often neglected.  Cato, I am afraid, simply hasn't got very good quality control.  I am not able to judge the quality of this publication any further than I already have, but the Cato affiliation does raise questions.  They've tried to sell me a line before, so I try to be careful.


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## Voadam (Sep 2, 2009)

Baron Opal said:
			
		

> No, you're not.
> 
> Do you honestly not see my point?




I don't think so. Its not making sense to me, but I'll take a shot at it. I'm trying to see specifically where the wrongness is.

The company makes an expensive book. Someone buys it and makes it available. Someone else doesn't want to pay the retail price of the book and gets the book without paying retail for it. You said this is wrong.

My analysis though is:

If the availability is sharing, it is not wrong.

If the availability is giving it as a gift it is not wrong.

If the availability is second hand sale in which the company does not profit then still it is not wrong.

The legal wrong is if the availability is copying and distribution in an infringing manner.

In each case the second person gets the book without paying the company, and the first three are legal and not wrong manners of doing so.

If it was theft, then the person being stolen from would be legally wronged, but not the company (even if the company lost a potential sale to the thief).

If it is copywrite infringement the legal harm is to the company's copywrite rights.


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## pedr (Sep 2, 2009)

These threads are fascinating.

I think we need to distinguish between the moral and the legal arguments, otherwise everyone gets very confused.

As mentioned, it cannot be immoral to obtain ideas from a work subject to copyright without compensating the copyright owner (hereafter: author). This actually leaves me wondering what it is that is morally wrong about copyright infringement. 

It is also worth noting that - at least as enforced - in most jurisdictions in the world, copyright infringment is an issue of private law. The wronged party can sue for the damages caused by the infringement. The US has taken steps to make it quasi-penal: the prevalence of punitive damages in US tort law makes very little sense to me - but it's unusual in this. In most jurisdictions, copyright infringement is as 'wrong' as breaking a contract. And plenty of legal economists will tell you that often the right thing to do is to is to break a contract, and pay the damages. The law can tell us very little about the morality of copyright (which isn't surprising, given how recent an idea copyright is).

Copyright also only protects the expression, and the right to develop works from that expression. This is why the OSRIC-like products are (probably) non-infringing, and why recipes are not copyrightable. Coca Cola have to use trade secret laws to protect their ingredients and forumlae. Copyright would not help them at all. 

Conflating copyright infringement and theft does many undesirable things. It suggests that the law has assigned a moral status to infringement. It suggests that copyright infringement is obviously criminal. And it devalues the 'theft' concept, which is depriving another of a _thing_ which they are entitled to possess and enjoy. Infringment does not affect the copyright at all.

Though NB: copying a book out by hand is just as much copyright infringement as using a photocopier or scanner, unless fair use/fair dealing or a license allows it. 

In short (and this goes for games, films, music, etc alike) I'm firmly convinced that private law is entirely suitable to deal with copyright infringment. Copyright owners whose rights are infrigned ought to be entitled to recover their actual, provable damages, i.e. the actual, provable amount of revenue they lost due to unauthorised copying. And no more.


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## Storm Raven (Sep 2, 2009)

pedr said:


> In short (and this goes for games, films, music, etc alike) I'm firmly convinced that private law is entirely suitable to deal with copyright infringment. Copyright owners whose rights are infrigned ought to be entitled to recover their actual, provable damages, i.e. the actual, provable amount of revenue they lost due to unauthorised copying. And no more.




This, in practice, is almost impossible to prove. In other words, if this is the standard of recovery for copyright infringement, then you may as well abolish copyright so we can return to the era of patron provided funding for artistic endeavors.

This is why the law (in the U.S. and most other countries) provides for statutory damages - all the copyright holder has to do is prove copying, and the law presumes a certain level of damages. The damages are not merely to compensate the copyright holder, but to discourage the infringer, and placing the additional burden of proving "actual, provable damages" (which would be impossible in almost all cases) would prevent the public policy objectives of the copyright law from being fulfilled.


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## Storm Raven (Sep 2, 2009)

Voadam said:


> My analysis though is:
> 
> If the availability is sharing, it is not wrong.
> 
> ...




The common thread through all of this is that you have not expanded the volume of material on the market. You take your copy of a book to the second hand store, you lose access to the material except as your memory is good enough to retain it in your mind. If you want to (or need to) refresh your memory, you have to reacquire a copy. The same is true if you lend a book to a friend. During the time he has access to the material, you don't, and vice versa.

The gift giving scenario doesn't even make sense in this context. You buy the book, you give it away. Unless you are a jerk who reads a book before giving it as a gift, you didn't even access the copyrighted material before transferring ownership.

In all of these cases, the author of the work has made one sale, and one person has access to the work at any given time. If two people want to have the book, then they both need to get a copy.



> _The legal wrong is if the availability is copying and distribution in an infringing manner._




That would be the definition of _copy_right. When you copy the book and give it away, you are creating an additional permanent record of the work, so that multiple people could have access to it simultaneously. This is the wrong. The author makes 100 copies (hypothetically) and prices his book on that basis. You make 100 copies, and undercut him. He loses his shirt trying to sell the work he made, even if you gained nothing (i.e. even if you gave it away free). The harm is in expanding the volume available to the market without compensating the copyright holder.


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## Deimodius (Sep 2, 2009)

Here's a thought...

When you buy a computer program, for example the Windows OS, or a computer game, generally (depending on the EULA) you are only allowed to install ONE copy of the program on ONE machine at any one time. You can move it to another machine, but it can't be on more than one machine at the same time. (Like I said, some EULAs allow for multiple installation, most don't).

This would be like the argument above that If you buy the book and lend it to a friend you don't have access to it while he/she has it.


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## Nifft (Sep 2, 2009)

Deimodius said:


> Here's a thought...
> 
> When you buy a computer program, for example the Windows OS, or a computer game, generally (depending on the EULA) you are only allowed to install ONE copy of the program on ONE machine at any one time. You can move it to another machine, but it can't be on more than one machine at the same time. (Like I said, some EULAs allow for multiple installation, most don't).
> 
> This would be like the argument above that If you buy the book and lend it to a friend you don't have access to it while he/she has it.



 EULAs are a grey area of the law. They don't necessarily do anything. Also, they have nothing to do with books, so considering them will only confuse this issue further.

So let's not consider them.

Cheers, -- N


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## Mistwell (Sep 2, 2009)

Nifft said:


> EULAs are a grey area of the law. They don't necessarily do anything. Also, they have nothing to do with books, so considering them will only confuse this issue further.
> 
> So let's not consider them.
> 
> Cheers, -- N




First, right now a majority of Federal Court districts find EULAs to be legitimate and enforceable.  A minority of circuits disagree, and eventually the issue may be resolved by the USSC.  So, while they do not "necessarily" do anything, they probably do, and in most US States they do.

Second, they are a related field with a similar problem.  It's a fair topic for discussion.  So, we should consider them.


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## pawsplay (Sep 3, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> I'm really tired of people denying that they aren't downloading libraries of books, music and movies from the internet so they can play without paying.




It must be exhausting to be you. Certainly, there are no pirated books, music, or movies on my hard drive, apart from MP3's of "Fett's Vett," "Jesus Was Way Cool," and "Aunty Mabel." As "Aunty Mabel," formerly generally unavailable in the US, is now available as an MP3 download on Amazon these day, I suppose I should shell out the $0.89.


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## Baron Opal (Sep 3, 2009)

I'm sure I'm as tired as you are, pawsplay.


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## pawsplay (Sep 3, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> I'm sure I'm as tired as you are, pawsplay.




There's a world of difference between explicating a viewpoint and simply claiming, ad hominem, that your opponents are a bunch of rationalizing free riders. I am not tired of refuting the spurious claim that criticism of the modern copyright system is merely self-serving.


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## Baron Opal (Sep 3, 2009)

I have not accused anyone on this board. If you can find so quote it and I'll apologize. My comments come from my direct experience with past associates and roommates who had no compunctions against their theft.

Neither am I claiming that criticism of the system is self serving. I am claiming the infringement is wrong, regarless of how easy or consequence free it seems to be.


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## pawsplay (Sep 3, 2009)

Baron Opal said:


> I have not accused anyone on this board. If you can find so quote it and I'll apologize. My comments come from my direct experience with past associates and roommates who had no compunctions against their theft.
> 
> Neither am I claiming that criticism of the system is self serving. I am claiming the infringement is wrong, regarless of how easy or consequence free it seems to be.




Perhaps you meant no offense, but I have trouble interpreting this



			
				Baron Opal said:
			
		

> I'm really tired of people denying that they aren't downloading libraries of books, music and movies from the internet so they can play without paying.




as anything other than an accusation against anyone who questions your views on infringement. Obviously, if your friends are saying they ARE downloading material, this comment is not directed at them. It must be directed at people who say they are not downloading stuff without paying for it. In this case, it appears to me that the group of people you are referring to in this discussion are those who do not take a hard line against piracy. You seem to be saying that the line of argument is self-serving. Perhaps I have misinterpreted you. Saying "My experience is..." just sounds like an attempt to defend what you have just stated, without modifying your stated viewpoint, which I perceive to be what I have just stated. 

So, in short, if you are not interested in apologizing, so be it.


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