PDF piracy

[Vorlon Servant]

Wizards of the Coast has just pulled there PDFs from sale, the reason for which seems to be piracy. I was just wondering in Mongoose has encountered large scale piracy and wether you would consider removing you PDFs from sale (please don't).

 

[MongooseMatt]

Yes we do, but no we won't.

 

[tealzooka]

PDF pirates are low #$#$%.
I never understood why someone who paid for an item would give it to every one else for free.
I guess I work to hard for the money I make.
I have no copyrighted material but respect those who do. Ok, rant over.

 

[Anonymous]

Its never going to stop so its a case of just getting on with things.

Sad but in the end true.

 

[Gaidheal]

It's not all bad either, I have bought quite a few things over the years because I came across a PDF that looked interesting.

That doesn't justify the distribution of material you have no right to redistribute but I'll bet that a lot of those who have it never use it and would never have paid for it either.

 

[grendal]

jumping into these dangerous waters...

several of the PDFs that WoTC removed were free...I wish I had been able to back up all the chainmail rules they used to have.

 

[Finarvyn]

It's not all bad either, I have bought quite a few things over the years because I came across a PDF that looked interesting.

That doesn't justify the distribution of material you have no right to redistribute but I'll bet that a lot of those who have it never use it and would never have paid for it either.

I agree. If I really like a game or module or whatever I'd rather have a printed copy so I buy it. The only exception to this would be OOP product which might be really expensive on e-bay, and I would have bought it from the publisher if it was still in print.

Basically, I understand that game companies are not raking in big dollars and most of them seem to be working hard to stay afloat so I'd rather support them than have them vanish. (Guardians of Order comes to mind right away.) Same thing for local game stores.

I read somewhere that most people who download free PDFs (I suppose legal or otherwise) hardly ever do anything with them. They just sit on a hard drive somewhere.

 

[Paladin]

...but I'll bet that a lot of those who have it never use it and would never have paid for it either.

I read somewhere that most people who download free PDFs (I suppose legal or otherwise) hardly ever do anything with them. They just sit on a hard drive somewhere.

That cracks me up and is one of the lamest excuses for the piracy of PDFs/music/video. That's like saying, it's ok that I stole the painting, I hung it in the spare bedroom that we never real use.

 

[Strangelove]

...but I'll bet that a lot of those who have it never use it and would never have paid for it either.

I read somewhere that most people who download free PDFs (I suppose legal or otherwise) hardly ever do anything with them. They just sit on a hard drive somewhere.

That cracks me up and is one of the lamest excuses for the piracy of PDFs/music/video. That's like saying, it's ok that I stole the painting, I hung it in the spare bedroom that we never real use.

Not to be too pedantic but your example would be more accurate to say you took a hi-res photo of the painting, framed it and placed it in the bedroom you don't use.

Copyright Infringement != Stealing regardless of how anyone feels about it morally.

 

[AndrewW]

That cracks me up and is one of the lamest excuses for the piracy of PDFs/music/video. That's like saying, it's ok that I stole the painting, I hung it in the spare bedroom that we never real use.

And how likely is it that you would have bought the painting? Even with a lot of PDF's floating around on harddrives that doesn't directly translate to lost sales.

 

[Finarvyn]

I'm not trying to say that PDF piracy is okay if you don't read 'em. :?

And I don't mean just pirated PDF files. Any free files. I can't tell you how many times I found free downloads for a game, thought "that could be neat", downloaded what they had, then never went back to it.

 

[omegar]

Not to be too pedantic but your example would be more accurate to say you took a hi-res photo of the painting, framed it and placed it in the bedroom you don't use.

Copyright Infringement != Stealing regardless of how anyone feels about it morally.

Surely it is closer to stealing a print of the Painting (i know not a solid example either) but there is a monetary loss suffered, however minor.

 

[Paladin]

...but I'll bet that a lot of those who have it never use it and would never have paid for it either.

I read somewhere that most people who download free PDFs (I suppose legal or otherwise) hardly ever do anything with them. They just sit on a hard drive somewhere.

That cracks me up and is one of the lamest excuses for the piracy of PDFs/music/video. That's like saying, it's ok that I stole the painting, I hung it in the spare bedroom that we never real use.

Not to be too pedantic but your example would be more accurate to say you took a hi-res photo of the painting, framed it and placed it in the bedroom you don't use.

Copyright Infringement != Stealing regardless of how anyone feels about it morally.

True. How about we compromise with a print of the original?

 

[Foxmeister]

Surely it is closer to stealing a print of the Painting (i know not a solid example either) but there is a monetary loss suffered, however minor.

Not necessarily! That rather depends on whether or not the person taking the copy would've actually bought the product had they not managed to get hold of it for "free".

It's very easy to get sucked into the idea that whenever an item is pirated (be it music, video, software, books etc), a sale is lost but this is very often not going to be the case.

Regards,

Dave

P.S. I'm not condoning piracy of any type here!

 

[Torg Smith]

I think the lost sale is not the point.

The people who download copies of a product that a business or individual is trying to sell is steeling the work of the people who put it together. The people who steal these PDFs are heartless slavers. They have no real intention to purchase them and truly expect the creators to produce this for free. These thieves actually think they are entitled to these products and get angry if anybody tries to stop them or call them thieves. Nobody is entitled to own slaves in any country that is of importance that I know of. To expect somebody to work for you for free is an extremely rude thing in my opinion. If these people do not want to pay for them they should not download them. I think the slavers are scum and the cesspool of society. Do not look upon these people as good people as they are not, they do not care at all about the theft of the others efforts.

Thank You,
Torg Smith

 

[Hervé]

As I said it already before, piracy is a matter of what I would call "player's responsability". Most editors have a hard time earning money with RPGs and a few hundreds illegal downloadings can make the diffrence between a relative success and a total failure for a game, especially for small editors.

If you want to see more books for your favourite game, just buy them or else the editor will stop printing them. It's all that simple. I want Mongoose to keep on producing new Conan stuff, so I buy a copy of anything Conan they print.

Anyway, I'm not so fond of PDFs, being an old school paper lover, so I always go for print versions, even if that means paying a bit more...

 

[Shadow4ce]

I want to weigh in here with these two thoughts...

While they may never have bought the original product, they are still using a pirated version, thus benefitting from the work of another person without giving said creator anything in return (except perhaps free advertising).

Also, the time they spend playing/using said product would have to be spent playing/using something else if they did not have the stolen product, which equates to lost sales of some product for someone, somewhere down the line, unless they spent that time doing nothing at all.

Just a couple of deep thoughts from an occasionally shallow person.

 

[AndrewW]

I want to weigh in here with these two thoughts...

While they may never have bought the original product, they are still using a pirated version, thus benefitting from the work of another person without giving said creator anything in return (except perhaps free advertising).

Also, the time they spend playing/using said product would have to be spent playing/using something else if they did not have the stolen product, which equates to lost sales of some product for someone, somewhere down the line, unless they spent that time doing nothing at all.

Just a couple of deep thoughts from an occasionally shallow person.

Not to condone anything but that does make a couple of assumptions.

A) The person is actually using the pirated version.

B) If not pirating they would have bought something else. (Could be they would spend the time using something else they already had).

Then there's the case of those that have paid for said product but also want it in PDF form and don't want to pay for the product all over just to get it that way.

 

[Shadow4ce]

I want to weigh in here with these two thoughts...

While they may never have bought the original product, they are still using a pirated version, thus benefitting from the work of another person without giving said creator anything in return (except perhaps free advertising).

Also, the time they spend playing/using said product would have to be spent playing/using something else if they did not have the stolen product, which equates to lost sales of some product for someone, somewhere down the line, unless they spent that time doing nothing at all.

Just a couple of deep thoughts from an occasionally shallow person.

Not to condone anything but that does make a couple of assumptions.

A) The person is actually using the pirated version.

B) If not pirating they would have bought something else. (Could be they would spend the time using something else they already had).

Then there's the case of those that have paid for said product but also want it in PDF form and don't want to pay for the product all over just to get it that way.

I should have been more clear, I was specifically talking about folks who are using the product (although the very act of downloading could be considered use - albeit short-lived, it is still occupying space and available for future further use, but now we are into semantics).

As far as your comment they would spend the time using something else they already had goes, well at some point they either purchased or stole that something else, hence my "somewhere down the line" comment (a line goes both into the future and into the past), so that is really not an assumption I made.

And as far as the PDF for someone who already has it in book form goes, that to me that is no different than saying it is okay to steal a paperback book because you already have the hardback.

Very few people would argue physical item taken is not stealing, but isn't it amazing when it becomes digital, how easy it is to forget it is still a product? Kind of how there are many things said to each other on forums that if the person you were speaking to were standing right in front of you, would never be said.

My father raised me to believe the road to hell is paved with gross rationalization, and the "If they don't actually use it, is it truly stealing?" argument gets far to close to a rationalization for my tastes. YMMV, and I am not judging those who feel that way. I'm just stating how I feel about it.

 

[AndrewW]

As far as your comment they would spend the time using something else they already had goes, well at some point they either purchased or stole that something else, hence my "somewhere down the line" comment (a line goes both into the future and into the past), so that is really not an assumption I made.

If they are instead using something they have say purchased instead it's not like they are going to buy something else because of not doing this.

And as far as the PDF for someone who already has it in book form goes, that to me that is no different than saying it is okay to steal a paperback book because you already have the hardback.

I never said it was ok, but it is actually legal to make your own scan of something you have purchased. It's simply putting it into another form.

Very few people would argue physical item taken is not stealing, but isn't it amazing when it becomes digital, how easy it is to forget it is still a product? Kind of how there are many things said to each other on forums that if the person you were speaking to were standing right in front of you, would never be said.

My father raised me to believe the road to hell is paved with gross rationalization, and the "If they don't actually use it, is it truly stealing?" argument gets far to close to a rationalization for my tastes. YMMV, and I am not judging those who feel that way. I'm just stating how I feel about it.

Not trying to say it isn't stealing or that it's right. Just that it's not entirely black and white and may or may not actually cause any lose of income.